Paradigm Stew
by Medusa Davenport
Summary: AU-Two Hawke siblings  Garrett and Marian  surviving their 'medieval alternate reality.'  One rises to become Champion of Kirkwall while the other brings all of Thedas to the brink of war.  Combination of canon and massive non-canon.
1. Holy Shit, a Dragon!

A/N: I don't know, I needed an absurd and funny break from my super-angsty Hawke-hates-herself-for-using-blood-magic story.

As ever, I'm sticking with default appearances. As for personalities, Garrett is more the tactful/serious Hawke and Marian more the charming/cynical Hawke.

_**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything. Not the characters that Bioware made or any of the myriad of wacky references, from the X-men to any of the books mentioned._

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><p>After the blinding light subsides and she recovers from the blast of force, the first thing Marian notices is that her car keys aren't digging into her thigh but a giant wooden stick is jammed between her shoulder-blades. She blinks and coughs as the dust settles around her, struggling to stand and taking stock of her surroundings.<p>

She stands in the midst of a wide dirt patch, the dust settling to reveal lumpy rocks and knotted hills. What trees exist have a withered, even charred appearance. It sure isn't her parents' garage, which means that if she can figure out where she is, she and her brother are going to make history for proving m-theory by traveling between universes, or at least for inventing a working teleportation device.

"Garrett?" she yells, looking around the barren landscape for her brother. "Garrett!"

A groan behind her makes her turn, still coughing. The motion makes her head swim and she covers her eyes with a hand.

"I'm right over here—Marian?" his voice rises into a question and she opens her eyes, staring up in horror at her brother. He should be only two inches taller than her at five foot ten, but this guy towers over six feet. Garrett doesn't have a beard, not even one of those popular douchebag twentysomething goatees, but this guy has full-on facial hair. It's her brother's deep, measured voice but with a British accent. And she's never seen her brother run around in medieval plate armor with a massive sword on his back.

"Garrett?" she asks. "What the hell? Where are we? Why are you wearing armor and what's with the beard? And the accent?"

He shrugs, making the plates of his armor clank together. "Your outfit's not much better and you have an accent, too. And you have short dark hair and a staff on your back."

Marian panics and grabs her head. Her wavy golden hair, her greatest asset, is gone. No long, thick layers of curls spilling over her shoulders and framing her soft features. Tears burn her eyes as she feels the fine texture of smooth hair, pulling the bangs down in front of her eyes (bangs, she has _bangs_) and staring at the shiny raven black strands. She must look as different as he does.

"Shit," she says, her brain churning at maximum capacity. She and Garrett are smart enough to design a bridge device to penetrate the membranes between reality stacks, even if it wasn't intentional, and to build a working prototype. They can figure this out. "Shit, shit. We're not in our own bodies. Our consciousnesses have somehow been transferred into new bodies, which may or may not have had consciousnesses in them," in her panic she babbles through the forced logic of her thoughts until she realizes what she's doing and stops herself.

His eyes—blue instead brown now—narrow, but she recognizes the swirling, troubled expression for the Garrett she knows back on planet earth. "Are we dead?" he suggests a too-reasonable hypothesis that she feels an immediate need to disprove.

Marian answers by kicking his shin, which is also armored. If she didn't have thick brown boots on, her toe would have broken. "Sonofabitch," she hisses, staggering back. "Well, _I_ feel pain, at any rate."

"I read _Riverworld,_" he answers, pointing an accusing finger at her. "You made me. And according to Farmer's depiction of afterlife, death doesn't mean an end to pain. Shit, according to the Bible death doesn't mean an end to pain."

"Well we aren't bald and naked, so there goes the Riverworld thesis," she sighs, touching her short hair again. "Although I might as well be."

"Garrett! Marian!" cries a female voice.

Both siblings turn in their unfamiliar new bodies to stare at the girl who called out to them. Dark hair hangs loose to her shoulders, which are bared by her revealing peasant dress and like Marian, she has a stick with ornate carvings and a wicked blade on her back. Marian glances down at the leather-and-metal strapping she's wearing and wonders how she ended up in something so ugly if there are actual women's clothes available.

"How does she know our names?" Garrett mutters as the girl jogs up to them.

Marian shakes her head. "I don't know, but play along."

The brunette girl flings herself against Garrett's chest and hugs him, plate mail and all. "Thank the Maker you're alright," she cries, not seeming to notice the awkward pat he gives her before she pulls back and hugs Marian in the same desperate fashion. "Mother and Carver and I have been looking for you two for nearly an hour."

Marian glances at her brother, who raises his eyebrows at her behind the amiable stranger. If the girl is calling someone 'mother,' it's a reasonable supposition that this mother is all of their mother, which makes the girl their sister.

"Where are Mother and, um, Carver?" Marian asks, turning her attention to the girl who seems to be their sister as she pulls back. She studies the girl's face for a moment and decides that if this body bears any resemblance to the sister, she can't be too bad looking. At least that's something.

"Are you all right, Marian?" asks the girl, squinting at her. "Did you take a blow to the head when that Emissary attacked us?"

"Uh, I might've," she answers, touching the back of her head.

"Bethany!" thunders a young male voice. The trio looks toward the source of the sound as a young man crests one of the nearby hills at a full run. Like Garrett, he has a sword nearly as large as he is tall strapped to his back. And he looks enough like Garrett's current face, albeit clean-shaven, that Marian decides it's safe to assume he's their brother.

The boy stops short just in front of them. "How did you two get all the way over here?" he asks, sounding irritable and short of breath.

"No idea," Garrett mutters. It's the first thing he's said to these strange new siblings and she can see the measured gaze he gives the boy. She feels damn lucky that he's there all of a sudden. Even if he's the younger sibling, he's been strong enough to protect her since they were kids.

The girl that the boy called Bethany looks at her brother. "Where's Mother? Did you just leave her alone with no defense against the Darkspawn?" she asks. The way she says the last word, 'Darkspawn' makes Marian flinch. It sounds worse than creepy from the note of fear in the girl's voice.

"D'you think I'm an idiot?" the boy asks, glaring at the girl. "She's right behind me. She just can't run as fast."

"Carver, how could you?" the girl says, her eyes widening and her sweet voice rising to a panicked pitch. She grasps Marian's hand and casts those wide, puppy eyes up at her. "We have to go get her."

"Well, duh," answers Marian, letting the girl tow her over the hill. "She's our mother."

She glances over her shoulder to see Garrett and the boy, Carver, following a few feet behind as Bethany releases her hand. They look a lot alike, walking with similar saunters, shoulders straight against the weight of their weapons. Marian is grateful that her stick is so light, though she doubts it will be much use against someone with a sword, or worse, a gun. Although everything they've seen indicates that this world has only medieval technology, she doesn't want to trust that there isn't something scarier than swords and whatever Darkspawn are.

The boys catch up and Bethany and Carver take the lead as she and Garrett fall in behind them. Marian listens to them arguing, trying to gather whatever information she can as they crest the hill.

"The entire horde on our heels and you just run on ahead of Mother?" Bethany says, managing to sound irritated, disappointed and frightened at the same time.

Carver glares at her. "Isn't that what you did, rushing off to look for our fearless leaders?" his sour tone sounds like he's not much for bottling his resentment. "What if you had run straight into a group of scouts looking for them?"

"Well, I didn't," Bethany huffs, her cheeks coloring. "And we agreed to spread out and look."

"Fine. Whatever you say," he grumbles, coming to a short stop and staring around.

Marian and Garrett stop as well, exchanging glances. Marian feels her heart pounding as Carver's says, "Maker's blood, where is she? Mother!"

"Shit," says Marian, scanning the long slope for any sign of a person as her new siblings start arguing. She sees nothing.

Garrett shifts next to her and points to the road far below. "Look," he says, and she stares at the black, scuttling mass of creatures running, swarming the road as they come into sight.

Bethany and Carver fall silent a moment, and then begin their squabble anew—"How could you let her out of your sight? Now there are Darkspawn!" and "You can't blame me for the bloody Blight!" and "It's your fault we can't find mother," and "It's your fault Garrett and Marian got blown up by your failed spell."

Marian glances at Garrett, guesses that he's figured out at least as much as she has, and tilts her head toward the argument.

He steps forward. "We have to find her and keep moving away from those things," Garrett announces, his voice just loud enough to shut both Bethany and Carver up. Their younger siblings look up at him, startled, just as he glances at Marian.

"Bethany and I will check the hillside. You two go down further, in case they attack," she says to the boys.

Garrett casts a dubious glance at Carver. "Wish we had an archer or something," he mutters. Marian can tell he's wishing she'd woken up with a bow on her back instead of a staff, not that she'd be much use anyway. She was terrible at archery in high school, and has never participated in any activity more violent than ballet or tennis. Garrett is the one who played football and swam and took three types of martial arts through college. She hopes he can wield that sword well enough not to get killed by the zombies below.

"Do you want us to cover you from up here?" asks Bethany. Her soft voice trembles with a note of something dangerous underneath and Marian stares at her new sister with raised brows, waiting for whatever the girl has to reveal.

"Isn't that a little bit out of range?" Garrett asks, keeping his voice neutral. His eyes dart toward Marian.

Bethany nods. "Good point. I guess that's why you're the big brother. We can move down the hill after you and start shooting when we're in range," she says, looking at Marian as though seeking approval, a tentative smile and doe-like eyes.

Marian nods at Bethany before she glances back to Garrett. He's probably thinking what she's thinking: 'if we aren't already dead, we will be soon.'

"What are we waiting for, then?" asks Carver. Marian wants to swat the sullen out of his tone, but she knows better than to start a fight she can't win. The boy starts jogging down the hill, finding footing without any apparent effort. Garrett sighs and takes off after him.

"Come on," says Bethany, following the boys at a slower pace. Marian brings up the rear, staring across the vast burnt landscape and wondering if they've landed in some hell dimension.

Their little band gets about halfway down the mountainside when a horrible wet growling noise fills the air. Marian shudders; her fascination with zombie movies doesn't mean she wants to live one. She halts, staring at the sight below: a red haired woman and a man in heavy plate emblazoned with a flaming sword are fighting through the crowd of monsters.

Garrett and Carver start running toward the couple, pulling their swords from their backs with identical sweeping gestures. Marian hesitates even as Bethany chases after the boys; she knows she needs to do something, but she has no idea what. How can she hope to fight a band of armed zombies with a goddamn tree branch?

The man turns to look at the woman for a moment and one of the beasts slinks behind him, slashing daggers into his back. His scream echoes through the valley. He swings his shield in a wide arc, knocking the creature to the ground as he stumbles against an outcropping of rocks and slumps to the ground. The zombie thing growls and gets to its feet, swaying toward him with murderous intent. Before its blade can slash again, the woman tackles.

"You will not have him," the redhead snarls, punching the growling zombie right in the face. Marian thinks that hand-to-face zombie contact is listed somewhere on the Rules of Zombie Survival under 'don't.' Her feet propel her forward but it's too far down the path. Even Garrett and Carver haven't caught up to them and they're going full speed. But the woman cuts the creature's head off before it can struggle against her, jumping to her feet and grabbing the man's shield.

A moment later, the boys crash into the mob of creatures with the clang of metal and the thick ripping noise of flesh. Marian feels her hands and arms tingling and thinks back to her research on the electromagnetic fields emitted by humans, wondering if adrenaline affects the field resonance in some distant corner of her mind. Dizzy with the speed of the battle, she pulls the staff from her back. It hums.

She can't describe it even as it happens; it's like the staff releases an EM charge to build the tingle in her limbs, or perhaps focuses the inherent charge of her body. Something inside her tells her to pull the tingling sensation through her hands and as the thought takes form in her mind she feels it happen, feels the energy current reverse and shoot down her arms, through her fingers, into the staff—and flames shoot from the tip of the staff. The nearest monster howls as it blazes up and she sees Garrett's face flash toward her, his eyes wide, before he spins his giant blade and lops the head off another zombie.

"Holy _shit_," she screams, laughing with hysteria or relief or manic glee. Rather than subside, though, the tingling grows. This time it's easier. Push and burn. By the third or fourth shot she doesn't even have to think about it. The tingling electromagnetism just floods through her, setting zombies ablaze in controlled explosions every time she points her staff at them.

At one point she glances over to see Bethany doing the same thing, swinging her staff around. A fireball erupts through four of the monsters, flinging the survivors to the ground at Carver's feet. He slashes their crispy stomachs open without hesitation, as if they practiced this combination.

It doesn't occur until the last monster falls that this medieval reality somehow adheres to the rules of fantasy, like _Lord of the Rings_ or _Earthsea_. Somehow she can manipulate electromagnetic energies to the point where she can set people-sized monsters on fire without effort and so can her medieval-reality sister.

Marian hurries down the mountainside. Garrett and Carver stand as the redhead rushes to the injured man, all of them splattered with reeking black blood that can't be their own. By the time she and Bethany make it over to them, the woman has her man on his feet, and she can tell by the way he looks at her and her sister that maybe their whole magic-energy-manipulation isn't super common here.

The man confirms it when he says, "Keep your distance, apostate." He hurls that last word at them and Marian recognizes it for an epithet of sorts, a condemnation most likely based out of religious certainty.

"Well the Maker certainly has a sense of humor," says Bethany, a bitter note twisting her voice. "We escape the Darkspawn only to run into a Templar."

The man, even trembling as he loses blood, takes a weak step toward Marian and Bethany. "The spawn are clear in their intent, but a mage's intentions can never be known," he says, staggering closer still. "The order dictates… the order dictates…"

Garrett steps between Marian and the advancing man and she can imagine his eyes narrowing and his jaw clenching. The Templar steps back. Good old Garrett.

"Dear, they saved us," says the woman. It's the first thing Marian's heard her say and the softness of her voice seems in contrast to the fearless fighting. "The Maker understands."

Garrett and Marian exchange glances and she sees him utter a small sigh of relief when Carver speaks up. "Did you also come from Lothering?"

"I was at Ostagar," she answers, shaking her head in a mournful way. "The horde has spread north. We're cut off."

"We can't go south, that's the Wilds," protests Carver, looking at Marian and Garrett for support. She has no idea what the Wilds are, but they sound a lot better than the zombies. Or Darkspawn. Apparently people here call zombies Darkspawn, which made sense, considering the medieval setting. She makes a mental note not to call them zombies until she can figure out how to get out of here.

"First we need to find Mother," Bethany says in a small voice. Marian looks over and sees how shaken the girl looks.

"We need to find her fast," Marian says, glancing at Garrett and Carver as she pats Bethany's shoulder. Her gaze falls to the woman and the Templar last of all. "If you guys don't mind helping us look, I think this is a more-the-merrier kind of situation."

"I do not know if Wesley can make it up that hill right now," the woman answers. Marian notices that one of her hands remains on the man's back as if to prop him upright.

Bethany glances at her with pleading eyes. "I know he's a Templar, but you can heal him, sister," she suggests, once more grasping Marian's hand. Her expression—terrified and hopeful at the same time—leaves Marian with a hollow sense where her stomach should be, even worse than the dread the word 'healing' invokes.

She dropped out of medical school only to end up in a parallel universe with a slew of X-men powers that she doesn't know the extents or limitations of, being asked to use said powers to heal a guy who has an obvious issue with her even having them. Fantastic.

Garrett catches her eye as he steps up to the Templar's other side. "Then we have a plan. Marian will stay here with Wesley and try to heal him," he says, and she can see the hint of smirk on the corner of his mouth as he says it. "The rest of us will look for Mother." She wants to punch that unfamiliar bearded face and knock her brother's smirk off it.

The woman—who introduces herself as Aveline Vallen—helps Marian lower Wesley the Templar to the ground, shifting him so she can try to check his back, where the knives sank around the pieces of his armor.

Carver and Bethany are halfway up the hill, calling for their mother and arguing with each other in equal amounts. Garrett remains, helping the women even though Aveline proves strong enough to handle the task on her own. The redhead leans over her husband and murmurs something to him.

He grips Marian's forearm and pulls her aside the moment the couple seems distracted. "How did we land in a Dungeons and Dragons game?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "Parallel universes, shared dreams or hallucinations, time travel and a whole lot of shit we need to figure out as soon as we get somewhere safe. I really don't want to take my chances with the whole Inception theory that I'll just wake up if I die here."

Garrett puffs his cheeks up and blows air out through pursed lips. "Yeah," he says. "This is so fucked up."

"Amen to that," she mutters.

"We need a plan," he says. "I don't think we're going to survive long around these monster things and I'm getting the vibe that we're already on the run from them."

Marian opens her mouth to answer, but the ground shakes. She stares at Garrett and then over to Aveline, who stands with her feet braced and an expression of equal confusion. Up the hill, Carver and Bethany both shout and wave their arms, running back down, skidding over stones and kicking up a cloud of dirt.

A moment later, the creature appears, charging up the mountainside toward their group. Marian hears Carver shout 'ogre' and she wishes this thing resembled Shrek in any way, shape or form. Huge horns protrude from the bony ridges over its brows and it bares its sharp yellow teeth under flared nostrils. It stands at least fifteen feet tall, with mottled gray and purple skin stretched over thick muscles, including several muscle groups that humans lacked around the arms and shoulders and neck. It would need the extra muscle to hold those horns up, she thinks, her head swimming as she stares at the ogre.

The massive beast jumps and pounds its fists on the ground, making everyone stumble. It lets out a noise somewhere between a snarl and a howl, spittle and bits of torn flesh that looks all too human flying through the air. Marian flinches and reaches for her staff just as both Carver and Bethany leap through the air at the monster, attacking with flames and blade.

Before anyone can react or do anything, the ogre swats them aside and they crash into the hillside with sickening crunches.

Marian glances over at them for a split second and then the beast charges at her and Garrett and she has to dodge away. Everything seems to happen in slow motion. She grips her staff and feels the energy howling in her hands, demanding release. The air around her crackles, making the hair on her arms and head stand on end.

She sees Garrett rolling to his feet, sword in hand, just as Aveline kicks a rock between the ogre's eyes and shouts at it. The monstrous head swings toward the redhead and Garrett swings at the back of the ogre's knees, slashing a cut that looks like little more than a flesh wound. The huge foot jerks back and connects with her brother's chest, knocking him several feet back, and the sizzling energy gathering in her hands and staff reacts like a bomb.

It would be light, but it's black with purple and silver sparks shimmering throughout, and it feels in her mind more like force than light. It sears through the ogre's back and chest and her fists clench, jerking apart with her subconscious desire. The force light tears through the immense chest cavity like paper, ripping the monster into pieces. Chunks of stinky burnt flesh rain down on the others.

Marian swivels her head to look at Carver and Bethany and sees both of them staring at her, half-conscious with broken limbs and blood on their faces. When she glances back at Garrett, he and Aveline stare at her with similar expressions. Fear and awe and concern.

She sways on her feet, aware of how dizzy and drained she feels after her feat. The gurgling growls fill the valley again and hundreds of Darkspawn pour up the hill and around the path, circling them and edging close to the limp forms of Carver, Bethany, and Wesley. Marian tries to lift her staff, drawing close to Garrett and Aveline, but her arm trembles and it drops to the ground with a thud.

"Maker," Aveline whispers behind her.

Her heart should hammer with the impending death she faces, but instead Marian feels resigned, fatigued, too weak to object or resist the inevitable.

A howl from above shakes the valley and everyone stares up at the source.

"Holy shit," Marian says, "That's a dragon."

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><p>I have no idea whether or not I'm going to continue this fic. It's fun and funny to write, but I somehow doubt people really like these were AUs where modern-day people end up playing the heroes of the story.<p> 


	2. The Real World Seems Far Away

**A/N:** From this point on, it's going to be two Hawkes going on different missions. I think I want to play with the idea that all of Marian's friends are Garrett's rivals and vice versa, though that might be easier said than done. This picks up at year one as they meet companions. Because there were four Hawke kids, Carver and Marian went with Meeran while Garrett and Bethany went with Athenril.

If you are inclined to review, go ahead and **_cast your vote on which twin- Garrett or Marian- will be known as Hawke, and which one will be the Champion. _Suggestions for a nickname for whichever one doesn't end up being Hawke are also welcome. I'm trying so hard to avoid having them be Hawke and Hawkette, even though it makes sense. Faugh on sense.**

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><p>Garrett can't claim he likes the smell of the Hanged Man, all stale sweat and skunked beer, but he's smelled worse in college dorms and Gamlen's house. He and his siblings hadn't noticed it while they worked their way into the city, because he and Bethany were out all hours of the night with Athenril's smugglers, while Marian and Carver disappeared on long missions with the Red Iron for days on end.<p>

Without steady employment, though, they find themselves stuck either at Gamlen's or the Hanged Man when they aren't out hunting for work. All four of them prefer the Hanged Man to their uncle's company or the festering stench of his home.

"I can't stand this," Carver groans beside him. Garrett shifts his dull eyes toward his younger brother, waiting to decide if he wants to strangle him until the teenager finishes speaking. "We can't afford enough drinks to make it tolerable here, and we can't find work enough to keep us out of here."

"It's a fucking paradox," Marian mutters from across the small table, blowing her dark bangs out of her eyes. She slumps with her forearms on the tabletop and her chin resting on them. After a year of blowing men up for money her cynical sense of humor has sharpened, concealing her more sensitive, empathic nature. If Carver hadn't told him about her vomiting after every job Garrett would believe the past year in this reality has left nothing of his sister but a raw, raucous joke.

Bethany glances at Marian and sighs, fiddling with the hem of her dress. At least one of his sisters doesn't pound cheap ale and pretend to be a medieval mercenary. Absent brown eyes gaze into her mug, more than half-full, and Beth twists the fabric without looking at it as Garrett watches his sisters, sitting side-by-side.

During their year of working with Athenril, Garrett's learned to like his new sister: her love of nature and poetry and pretty things, her ability to sew and even to weave a bit of magic into things like his gauntlets, and the way she yelped and backed away from a horse the first time she saw one but laughed as she did so. He often finds himself wishing he remembered the things Bethany talked about, like how a village boy stole one of her hair ribbons and Garrett beat him up and then forgot to bring the ribbon back, or how the girls used to sneak into his and Carver's room late at night so the elder twins could alternate between ghost stories and epic adventure tales with funny voices and magical effects courtesy of Marian's budding powers. She also has plenty of information regarding the apostate status that forced their family to run for years and remain hidden, leaving the four Hawke siblings one another's closest friends.

"What about that dwarf in Hightown, the one hiring all that muscle for his expedition?" asks Garrett. He stares at Marian. "Wasn't he talking to Meeran about recruiting from the Red Iron?"

She snorts and shakes her head without lifting it from her arms. "Carver and I talked to him already. He was a prick."

Carver folds his arms, tips back in his chair, and puts his feet on the table. "It'd make us rich if we got on there, though," he sighs, staring around the tavern as if inspiration will strike him.

Like Garrett and Bethany, Carver and Marian bonded over their year working as mercenaries, but theirs is a bond of humor that borders on morbid at times. Sometimes, watching them, he feels a sting of memory for the times he and Marian mortified their aunts by having serious discussions about the likelihood of an apocalyptic event at Thanksgiving dinner, or traded deadpan insults until their mother thought the fight was real. Now she and Carver joke about how men shit themselves before getting run through by a sword or fried with a lightning bolt.

The real world seems far away.

"Hawke!" calls a rough and rumbling voice from behind him.

Marian sits up a second before Garrett turns to see the speaker. A beardless dwarf in an open shirt with a mass of chest hair saunters toward them. Over the past year in this weird world, Garrett's seen plenty of elves and dwarves and even a few Qunari—enough that he knows a beardless dwarf is weird even here.

"Well, shit, if there aren't a whole mess of you," the dwarf chuckles. Garrett notices that he has a huge crossbow on his back and raises a brow. "Varric Tethras. I heard that you two—" he points at Marian and Carver "—talked to my brother Bartrand today. Sorry he was such an ass."

"He thinks we're not worth hiring but worth talking about, huh?" Marian grins at the dwarf and shakes the hair away from her face. She's determined to grow it out and the past year has left her with a sort of punk-rock look, like that chick from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs whose name he can't remember anymore.

"Oh, I didn't talk to him, but I know he was an ass," the dwarf waves a dismissive hand. "It's a hard job being a younger brother to someone like Bartrand," he says. "He wouldn't know an opportunity if it hit him square in the jaw."

"Not that I'm not willing to try," Carver mutters. Garrett notices that his brother sits with all four chair-legs and his own feet on the floor again, his usual scowl in place.

Marian's leg sweeps by his under the table and Carver winces a second later. She smirks at the dwarf and twists to rest one arm on the back on her chair. "So you wanna hire us after all?" she says. "Grab a seat. We can buy you a beer."

"What's beer?" Varric asks, staring at her. Garrett's heart pounds at the dwarf's curious expression.

"It's her word for ale," Bethany pipes up, releasing the hem of her skirt and pushing the empty chair beside her out for the newcomer. "Marian is always coming up with clever stories and such."

"A storyteller? Be still my beating heart," grins Varric, nodding at Bethany. He glances from her to Garrett and says, "But enough small talk. I see there are more of you than just the pair in Meeran's gang." His gaze turns to Marian and Carver and his grin widens. "He _hates_ you two, by the way, which is why I think I'll like you."

Both Carver and Marian scoff "good" at the same time, folding their arms and shaking their heads in an identical gesture.

"I'm Garrett," he says, extending a hand toward the dwarf. He's pleased to find that Varric has a strong handshake; his palms calloused with a combination of crossbow experience and vigorous writing. When his hand is released, Garrett gestures to his younger sister. "And this is Bethany. We've been working for Athenril."

"So, two Hawkes and two Hawke Juniors," laughs the dwarf, oblivious to the flush that crosses Carver's cheeks. "Tell you what, I could use all of your help. We don't need hirelings, though. We need another partner. You invest fifty sovereigns and he'll have to take you seriously."

Marian catches Garrett's eye across the table. "Holy shit," she says, turning to look at the dwarf. "Is this a pyramid scheme?"

"If we had that much money, we wouldn't really need this job," Garrett adds.

Varric smirks, eyes glinting as if he knew they would say that. "You need to think big," he says. "You invest in this expedition and you'll be set for life. Besides, we need some folks who've got some experience with Darkspawn and…ogre-killing."

Everyone stares at Marian, who drains her mug and stares into the bottom with pursed lips. Garrett and the others watch her for a long minute, until she looks up at the dwarf and says, "Supposing we were interested in investing. Any idea where we'd get that kind of cash?"

"I thought you'd never ask," he answers, leaning back in his chair and making a motion at the approaching waitress. "A buddy of mine, Anso, is looking for a hand relocating some stolen property. Meet him in the Bazaar after sundown."

"Why doesn't he just go to the guard?" Garrett asks. He can feel Carver nodding in agreement next to his shoulder.

Varric shrugs. "It's not exactly something he can ask the guard's help retrieving."

Carver snorts. "Speaking of guards, why don't we talk to Aveline? Didn't she get a job with them?"

Garrett glances at his brother. "She might have a few odd jobs for us." He looks back at the dwarf, who watches their exchange with a wary expression. "We won't interfere in your friend's shit. Just looking for work."

"I'll help your friend," Marian announces, just as the waitress returns with a new round of ale for everyone. She lifts her mug up, looking from Varric to Bethany, and says, "You wanna come with?"

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><p>"Hawke," says Aveline, pressing her lips together in a grim line when Garrett and Carver arrive at the Viscount's Keep.<p>

It freaks Garrett out that his name hasn't changed from one reality to the next. He's not even that bothered by the fact that he's grown to accept his two extra siblings and regard them as such. That first day he was bothered when he found himself weak with relief after the dragon lady showed them to where their mother had hidden from the ogre, embracing a woman he'd never met before until she laughed that he was crushing her ribs. She has the same name and the same kindness in her eyes, and he's never doubted it's at least the alternate-reality version of his real mother.

"Everything alright?" he asks her, frowning. He hasn't seen much of her this past year, and knows she doesn't approve of his career choice, but she seems downtrodden. More than she did on the awful boat ride to Kirkwall, fresh from killing her husband before the Blight disease could get him.

Aveline sighs and shrugs, her uniform plate clanking with the motion. "Something's going on, but I don't know just what," she answers, pacing in a tight knot in front of them. Garrett and Carver exchange glances and then look back to the guardswoman. "It's all dead patrols, but the thugs have been clearing off the streets. Someone's hiring for something big."

Garrett frowns and steps closer, extending a hand to stop her from pacing. "Do you know what's going down?" he mutters, glancing around to make sure no one but his brother hears the conversation.

She has gorgeous green eyes, now focused on him with a glint of hope. "They're planning an ambush. I pushed my contacts and found out where it's set up, just near Sundermount. Probably planning to raid some merchant caravans for goods or worse, slaves," she sneers the word 'slaves' and Garrett feels a surge of relief that Kirkwallers have the same feelings about slavery that he does. "If we leave now, we can make it there before nightfall. I can show you."

"Yeah, of course," he says before he can stop himself. On some level he feels bad that he just realized she's pretty, with her red hair and the spattering of pale freckles, like a girlfriend he had in high school, but stronger and more capable. He feels worse because he stood there watching while her husband died, unable to do anything to stop it but grateful that it was the Templar and not one of his siblings.

"What about that amulet that Flemeth woman gave us?" Carver asks. Garrett turns to look at him, having almost forgotten his brother's presence. The boy smirks at him. "Forgot about it, didn't you?" he says, pulling the amulet from beneath his shirt by the chain.

"You idiot," Garrett growls. "What the hell are you thinking, wearing something a freaking witch gave you?"

Carver's eyes narrow. "Both of our sisters are witches," he snaps.

"Not like that," Garrett answers. He hears the clink of Aveline shifting beside him and bites back on the urge to smack his brother. He has no trouble regarding Carver as an annoying younger sibling, but right now things need to get taken care of. "Okay, we're gonna go break up this ambush and then camp out near the Dalish and bring the amulet by in the morning."

"I can requisition supplies," Aveline offers. "Meet me out front in twenty minutes."

Garrett pauses and looks at her considering. "Make it the city gates in forty. We need to let the girls know where we're going."

"Why not see if they'll come with us?" she asks. "We could use the help."

He shakes his head, trying to conceal how awkward the question is. "They're looking into another job," he says, unwilling to lie to Aveline but certain she won't approve of the truth.

Her green eyes narrow, but he remains silent. After a long moment she shakes her head and steps back, and Garrett drags Carver back to Lowtown to gather a change of clothes and say their goodbyes to their sisters and mother.

An hour later, Garrett walks alongside Aveline while his brother trails behind glaring and sometimes muttering about how he hates the smell of the ocean. He tries to make conversation with her, but the guardswoman has single-minded purpose and leads them onward with sure steps and a stride that borders on jogging. After a while Garrett gives up and falls in beside Carver, who rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

"Marian's going to laugh her ass off," the boy promises.

"I'm going to choke you in your sleep before you can tell her," Garrett answers.

They glare at each other for a long moment and then burst out laughing. Aveline turns around to shush them and frowns.

"We're close. There may be some stragglers before the main horde," she mutters, her finger to her lips. Garrett nods and elbows Carver, who elbows him back until the guardswoman glares daggers.

She's right, of course. They round a corner and walk straight into a group of four scouts. Garrett draws his sword, a weight he found familiar from his first moment hefting it, and angles it to slash through the two nearest men just as Aveline yells and smacks a third with her shield. Carver swings low, gutting the man on the ground, and brings his sword up just as Garrett does, both blades driving into the last of the small group.

Garrett looks around at his companions, pleased with their teamwork. Aside from some blood splattered on them, no one has suffered so much as a bruise.

"Don't get cocky," Aveline warns. "The worst is yet to come."

They encounter two more groups before the ambush. Neither of the bandit patrols manages to get word to their fellows, so Garrett feels confident in their element of surprise as they approach the main group around a rocky outcropping. He's so intent on the thugs that he doesn't notice the tripwire until his foot moves through it.

A blast of heat and force knocks him to the ground, ears ringing. He rolls out of the way of an oncoming blade and kicks his attacker's feet out, deaf. Garrett whips his sword in an arc as he stands, slashing through the bandits and searching for the others. His ears pound, an empty throb of aftershock, and his left shoulder aches where it slammed into the ground.

His pommel smacks a man behind him, staggering the thug back, and a moment later Carver stands beside him, broadsword slicing through their attackers. Garrett spots Aveline, surrounded by four men, deflecting their attacks with her shield and stabbing at them when she gets the chance. He elbows Carver and tilts his head toward the guardswoman.

Just as his brother darts off, an arrow whizzes by and thunks into the ground where Carver stood a moment before. Garrett turns to see a pair of archers and ducks the next missile, coughing as burning oil sends smoke and sand up at his feet. He sprints up the hill and slashes his blade through both. A searing pain drives through his shoulder and he whirls to see two more archers on a neighboring rise and an arrow jammed between the plates of his armor.

He shifts his blade to his right hand and swats the next arrow aside, running at the archers. Carver gets there first, a great two-handed sweep destroying both at once. Garrett sees a man step from behind the shadows of a rock—how did he fail to notice him before? He yells and waves his arms as his brother turns, grinning at him, but it's too late.

The man's daggers slash toward Carver's exposed back. Aveline dives on the last attacker shield-first, and Garrett takes a flying leap, slamming his blade down on the man's neck. He turns to his brother, who kneels on the grass, dizzy and shocked from blood loss.

"Oh, shit, Carver, shit, shit," he says, kneeling and propping the boy up in his arms. The moment Garrett touches him Carver collapses, unconscious, as if he waited until he knew he was safe to pass out.

The barb of the arrow tears at his shoulder and he ignores it, investigating the wounds on his brother's back. Thanks to Aveline, the daggers didn't penetrate any organs, but the tips scraped over both his shoulder blades when she knocked the bandit over. Garrett shudders; the deep scratches, visible in spite of the blood, indicate that the knives could have penetrated bone.

He glances at the guardswoman to see she's already found several elfroot poultices for the wounds among their supplies and the supplies of the dead men. She helps him tear Carver's shirt open and press the salved bandages against his shoulders to staunch the bleeding without uttering a word.

"We need to get him to the Dalish. They must have a healer," Garrett says, looking at her. He wipes his bloodied hands on the ground, making dirt stick to them in a thick layer. "If you can carry the packs, I'll carry him."

"Not with hands like that you won't," she answers, her voice a sharp reminder of his situation. She pulls a canteen out and pours some water on his hands, then removes the kerchief at her neck so he can scrub the grime off. Garrett attempts to smile at her but finds he can't and instead busies himself with the task of lifting Carver, who is far more solid than he expected.

"How far are they?" he asks her, once he's certain he has his brother steady in his grip. The boy is two inches shorter than he is (and Garrett loves to remind him of it) but he's too long to be cradled like a baby and his legs stick out at odd angles, jostling against Garrett's hip as he jogs.

"Not far," Aveline promises, and then she falls silent. He follows her, grateful that she doesn't speak, for the better part of an hour before they see the bright red sails of the legendary Dalish land ships over the treetops. They have to stop twice to reapply Carver's bandages and Garrett winces to think of their depleting supply of bandages. But he can't let his brother die out here.

He runs onward and nearly trips over something soft and warm that squeaks.

"Oh my!" Garrett stumbles, struggling to right himself with his brother's weight, and feels a crackling wave of force steady him. He stares at the thing he just tripped on: an elf girl, dark hair tied away from the intricate vines tattooed on her lovely face.

"Please," he says, too desperate to appreciate her beauty, "My brother's been stabbed."

* * *

><p><strong>Next chapter:<strong> just to be an ass, I'm following Marian and Bethany while they rescue Fenris. *cackle*


	3. What's a Star Wars?

**A/N:** Wow, I love you my lovely reviewers! Yes, Garrett does seem more Champion-y, especially after this Marian-centric chapter. And... I really like both Sparky and Sparklefingers. In fact, those two reviews mated and produced a plot-bunny. 3

I'm kind of planning to go with Garrett/Merrill and Fenris/Marian in terms of pairings.

Willing to accept suggestions for other pairings, though. I do kind of like the idea of Howe/Bethany, Isabela/Bethany or Anders/Bethany and I like Carver/Isabela and Carver/Merrill, but Merill might be taken. Poor Carver's got too few options, so he's just getting whoever's left over, lol.

* * *

><p>Marian kicks the empty chest and turns, scowling, to face Bethany and Varric. Her staff still hangs in her hand, buzzing with leftover energy from their fight. Not a pleasant fight, either. The cramped space of the hovel made it harder to stay out of sword range and if it weren't for the new set of freezing spells she'd learned, the whole group would probably be dead.<p>

"We just almost died for a crate full of nothing," she snaps, and hears the crackle of energy buzzing over her. She takes a deep breath and sighs, forcing her emotions and magic under control. Here she'd thought the bathrooms would be the worst part of medieval life, but possessing freaky out-of-control powers turns out to be worse than crapping in a jar. That and Kirkwall's religious right wing wanted to see her locked up at best or turned into a vegetable at worst.

Varric shakes his head, looking sour. "Who put us up to this?"

"Your friend Anso," Bethany supplies from beside him. Marian sometimes wonders how her sister can be so naïve when Carver is so cynical.

"Anso didn't set this up. He's kind of a… middleman for people who can't really go out in public," the dwarf answers. He looks at Marian as he speaks, having already chosen her as the leader of their expedition.

"Like apostates," she mutters, shaking her head until the dark hair falls into her eyes. She sighs, feeling her shoulders hunch, and swings her staff onto her back. "Shit. Well, let's go back and tell him this was a bust."

They step outside and Marian wishes they hadn't. A group of armed and armored guards stand in a semicircle outside, trapping them.

"That's not the elf!" a woman yelps, frowning in confusion. Marian doesn't know who this elf is, but she pulls her staff off her back, hearing Varric and Bethany draw their weapons as well.

Another, even more helpful guard says, "Orders are to kill anyone who goes inside."

Marian doesn't wait for them to get their swords out. The memory of the ogre bearing down remains fresh in her mind and the tingle in her arms feels similar. More controlled now that she's gotten the hang of it, she lifts her hands to the sky. Clouds thicken overhead and as the guards start running toward them, lightning arcs down to strike half of them. A fireball slams into two men who've gotten close to her and the lead guard drops with an arrow in his throat.

She glances around, half aware of the manic laughter bubbling from her mouth, her body electrified with exhilaration. Some invisible force slams into her and throws her against the giant tree in the middle of the courtyard. Dizzy and with ringing ears, she struggles out of the way just as a lightning bolt sears right next to her head.

"Shit," she screams, slamming the butt of her staff in the ground to summon a shield of invisible force, the air around her vibrating. Her frantic eyes seek out Bethany, who has a spiral of flames surrounding her, keeping enemies at bay, occasional jets spurting out to kill the nearest men. Varric is nowhere to be seen, but the thunk-and-gurgle of a man dying by arrow next to her reveals that the dwarf has slipped into the shadows to snipe enemies from the safety of invisibility.

The enemy mage smiles, grim teeth bared, and Marian feels the hum of power demanding to be used again. Rock tears from the ground in front of her and shoots at her attacker. It slams into him, knocking him off his feet, and an arrow lands in his throat a second later. Marian spins to face the men gathered around Bethany and jerks her staff in a short arc. Icicles spring from the ground to skewer half the men and her sister lets the flames blast out to finish off the rest.

"Wow, Hawke, you _do_ get results," the dwarf says, stepping out of a dark corner and slinging the crossbow onto his back with a casual motion.

Marian rubs the back of her head, feeling the tender lump under her hair where she hit the tree. "Call me crazy, but I think your buddy left a few important details out," she grumbles. "Like a shitload of angry dudes with swords."

"Dudes?" Varric echoes.

"Another of her words," Bethany interjected, but Marian didn't miss the warning look her sister shot her through the dark.

She and Garrett got lucky after the ogre thing—both of their siblings had so many broken bones that they spent the ship ride half-conscious while she healed the fractures. So it took an entire day after reaching Kirkwall for Bethany and Carver to realize that Marian and Garrett were not the same people. Awkward.

"_You're not really my sister, are you?" Bethany asked, her voice hesitant. Marian glanced at her sister and saw the fear in her eyes and the tremors in her hands._

_She sighed and sat in front of Bethany. "No. My name is Marian, and Garrett is my brother, but we're from… another world," she explained._

"_Abominations," snarled Carver from the doorway. His hand gripped his sword._

"_I don't know what an abomination is, aside from an urban legend about snowmen," she answered, and it worked like a charm: he let go of the weapon, too bewildered to attack her. "I also didn't know that magic was real until I woke up in this body."_

"'_Woke up in this body?'" Bethany's voice trembled and Marian saw tears in the girl's eyes._

"_Oh, shit. Shit. Look, Garrett and I thought we were dead, or maybe dreaming," she said. "I have no idea why we're in your siblings' bodies, or where their consciousness went. I only know that I built a very radioactive machine in my dad's garage and it blew me and my brother across freaking universes."_

"Let's get out of here," Marian says. She feels Varric glancing between her and Bethany for some kind of translation, and feels her sister's fretful frown burrowing between her shoulders, but she leads on a few steps ahead.

And another crazy guard stops them before they can leave the Alienage. He wears the same uniform as the others they killed, which she recognizes as not belonging to either Templars or City Guards. At least she's not adding 'assaulting an officer of the law' to her list of crimes. She hopes.

"I don't know who you think you are," the man announces, "But you'll die for this."

Marian rolls her eyes, reaching for her staff as the guy shouts for his troops. A long guy limps out, missing a foot, and drops with a choked, bloody noise, skidding down the steps. She feels her nose wrinkle at the sight before her eyes widen.

The hottest man she's ever seen walks down the stairs behind the dead man. He's an elf, so he has that lanky figure, and even if he wears stupid Goth-kid armor and has super-bleached hair, the intricate tattooed vines running up his arms and neck make up for it. That and his bone structure—all of the anatomy classes made her appreciate good bone structure more than anything. He has high, sculpted cheekbones, a straight nose, and lips just full enough that he looks fun to make out with, but not so puffy that he looks a tacky layer of lipstick away from being a drag queen.

"Your men are dead and your trap has failed," the elf says, solidifying her impression with the kind of deep voice that makes her want to play the Bond girl to his inner Sean Connery. "I suggest running back to your master while you still can."

The man on the stairs doesn't seem to understand that he's got three people in front of him who just killed a bunch of his buddies and a pissed-looking elf dude behind him who claims to have offed the rest of the buddies. He must be dumb as a brick, because he grabs at the elf and says, "You're going nowhere, slave."

"What the shit?" Marian blurts. She remembers punching some Southern Belle sorority sister when the girl made a comment about 'colored folks' in college and feels a fierce grin spread over her lips as she grips her staff.

"I am _not_ a slave," snarls the elf.

Before Marian can aim her staff, the elf's tattoos glow. They straight up glow, and then the elf jams his hand into the other guy's heart, Indiana Jones-style, except this guy is wearing armor and the kid in _Temple of Doom_ was in a loincloth. Marian hears Bethany gasp behind her as she and Varric mutter 'holy shit,' in perfect unison.

"I apologize," the elf begins, "When I asked Anso to provide a distraction for the hunters, I had no idea they'd be so numerous."

"You just stuck your hand through a guy like Shadowcat," Marian says. "That was what you did, right?"

"What's a Shadowcat?" Varric asks.

Bethany sighs. "She really likes making up words."

Marian ignores them, focused on the elf. He just broke the known laws of physics. Of course, she wouldn't be here if she hadn't broken the whole travelling-across-reality-membranes law. "Do you alter your molecular density to move through solid objects, or do you alter the molecules of the object so that you can pass through it? Is it a conscious or subconscious control mechanism?"

The elf stares at her, green eyes wide with confusion. "I have never heard such words before. What language is it that you speak?" he asks.

"Uh, theoretical phys—" she cuts herself off. She and Garrett have been trying to teach physics to their siblings for the past year and it's clear that there never was a Newton in this world. "I'm just babbling. Sorry. So you know Anso, huh?"

Green eyes blink and Marian feels her cheeks burn. "My name is Fenris," he says, moving toward the slumped form of the man he just killed and crouching to rifle through his pockets. He glances over his shoulder at her, giving her a strange look, and adds, "Those hunters were after me."

"I'm Hawke," she says, and frowns to hear that she's started introducing herself by the surname that the Red Iron knew her by. So she changes the subject. "Why did they send so many guys after you? What did you do, bang Helen of Troy?" she laughs and hears Bethany sigh again.

Varric says, "Who's—never mind."

Fenris the elf with the Norse name raises dark eyebrows from where he crouches on the ground. "I also do not know this Helen of whom you speak," he comments. His words and phrasing are so formal that Marian wonders if English is his second language.

She waves a hand. "It's an old, um, Fereldan myth," she says, flushing.

Bethany sighs a third time, exaggerating the noise to impress Marian with her irritation. "You'll have to remember to tell me that one again, Sister," she mutters.

Marian glowers over her shoulder before turning to look at the hot elf again. "So you were seriously a slave?" she asks him. "Are more of those, you know, hunter dudes coming back for you?"

"Dudes?" Fenris echoes.

"I think it's a Fereldan word for 'guards' or 'men.' Maybe even short for 'dirty bastards we plan to kill,'" Varric suggests, and the elf nods with a flicker in his eyes. The dwarf shrugs, "Humans."

"I see," his luminous eyes shift back to Marian and she gives him a weak smile. "Yes, more of those, um, 'hunter dudes' will return. But my former master is staying in the city, as I thought." He lifts an ornate key from the dead man's belt, jerking it free with the snap of leather. Marian tries not to think about how sexy the casual display of strength is.

"Lemme guess," she says, watching as he straightens up. "He's got a shitload of armed guards and you need a hand killing them."

Fenris blinks and it occurs to Marian that he's startled. "Yes," he says.

She nods at the key. "Is the front door the best entrance?" she asks him, folding her arms and quirking a brow.

The elf's lips curl into a sneer so vicious that Marian takes a step back. "I do not fear death," he snarls, and she notices that his gloves have these clawed brass-knuckle things when he flexes his fist. "For years he has tortured and abused me. He gave me these accursed markings against my will. He kept me on a _leash_, like a Saarebas, his own personal pet to mock Qunari custom!" His voice, which has risen to a full-on yell, abruptly turns to a frigid monotone as he adds, "So yes, I intend to rip his beating heart from his chest and crush it in the palm of my hand."

"Okay, that's really fucked up," Marian says, raising her hands as if to ward him off. The movement makes her palms tingle and she snatches her hands down to her sides. "Look, obviously we're gonna help you. All I'm saying is you can't really get revenge on this dude if you just sprint in and get skewered by his bodyguards."

"This… _dude_ has enslaved me—" Fenris starts, sounding furious. He makes the word 'dude' sound like some kind of poison.

Marian cuts him off. "And that's why we're going to kill him. But I'd like to make sure we get him first. Besides, if we fail, you could end up being captured and so could we." She gestures at Bethany and does her best impression of the elf's sexy sneer back in his face. "You're fucking crazy if you think I'll let my little sister get sold into slavery."

He blinks and looks back and forth at them as if trying to verify the statement. His chin makes a short downward motion and she notices that the tattoos run right up to his lower lip. All of a sudden she understands why girls squeal at concerts and celebrity sightings, not that she hasn't thought about hitting it with James Franco six ways from Sunday. "Very well, what do you intend to do?"

Marian glances around her shoulder at Varric. "That one's got the ninja stealth skills, so I'm guessing he can help us keep to the shadows a bit," she says.

The dwarf shakes his head. "I don't know what a ninja is, but I think you're overestimating me, milady," he gives her a mournful look, "And much as I'd love to brag that I could hide everyone at once, I can't. But if we drop by a certain stall in the Bazaar, I can pick up a couple of my special supplies and add a bit more firepower to the fight."

She purses her lips and exchanges glances with Bethany. "You try and stay back, okay? If you get so much as a bruise, Garrett and Carver will hold me down while our mother takes it out of my ass."

Bethany utters a weak chuckle and starts twisting her skirt in her hands, staring at the ground. Marian wants to hug her little sister, but now isn't the time. She looks at the elf, sizing him up. "Fenris, you have a huge sword—" Varric snorts and she kicks a blind foot in the direction of the noise, missing him by a sizable margin "—so you're probably not planning to stay hidden anyway. I assume your whole moving-through-solid-matter thing is kind of useful in terms of not getting hit?"

He nods, eyes darting between Marian and Varric before settling on her. "I am competent in the use of the abilities my markings have bestowed upon me," he answers, his back straight and his tone formal as ever. His eyes shift from her face and the intense gaze lifts to the sky. "We must get there before morning. He's staying in a mansion in Hightown."

"Do you know how to get there?" she raises an eyebrow. When he nods again, she motions to the steps. "Then let's haul ass."

Fenris hesitates, his stare growing intent. Marian forgets how to breathe and the stare lasts so long she feels dizzy. "You are a strange human," he says at last, turning to lead them up the steps.

"You have no idea," she smirks. Marian tilts her head to one side and surveys the back view. Not too flat, not too bubble-butt. Somewhere to dig her nails in while—_wow_, she needs to get laid. Maybe by the hot elf, although the way he described his master made him sound like a rape victim. An ache settles across her chest and worms its way into her gut. She pushes her thoughts away from sex and starts jogging after the handsome ass—um, elf.

Bethany's elbow digs into her side. "Maker, Marian, you're _staring_," she grins.

Marian points her finger at her sister's face. "If you laugh or giggle or say anything about it, no Star Wars tonight," she threatens. Her gaze rounds on the dwarf. "Same to you."

"What's a Star Wars?" he asks, looking up at them.

"Oh, it's _marvelous_," Bethany's eyes light up and she starts explaining to Varric with various hand motions and mimicked sound effects. Marian glances back at them to see the dwarf's eyes light up as well. She decides she likes him.

* * *

><p>"You're a mage," Fenris growls, eyes flashing and tattoos glinting as he steps toward her. "Tell me, then: what manner of mage are you?"<p>

Marian wants to think about how sexy his voice sounds when he talks like that, but the reek of brimstone and decaying flesh still clings to her skin and clothes and all of the death tonight hits her in a sudden post-battle rush, tearing the mania down and ripping through her stomach.

"Oh, shit, hold my hair," she gasps, lunging past Fenris and past where he had been slouching against the ivy-covered wall, looking like the cover of some Twilight-style romance novel, to vomit in the bushes. If Varric and Bethany hadn't gone ahead to give her a private moment with Fenris, they'd be roaring. She retches for a full minute before she can surface for air, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "Shit. Sorry. What was the question?"

The elf scowls at her and crosses his arms. "What is it you seek?" he snaps. He seems irritated at her display of nerves.

"Right now a toothbrush would be great," she mutters. Of course, like every hot guy, he's a dick. She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. "I don't know what you even mean by that. I want a lot of things. Everyone does. Like right now I want to wash my mouth out and go drink and dance at the Hanged Man and be glad that I didn't get eaten by a motherfucking apocalyptic host of demon things— which, by the way, thanks!" Her voice rises. "Thanks for that. I'm living a fucking season finale of _Buffy_ getting chased by a bunch of monster-ghosts, and all you can do is bitch at me for frying them with the only weapon I've got. Nice."

Fenris blinks and shakes his head, tousling the white hair away from his face. "You have great power, power no man should possess," he begins. "And you say many strange things that make no sense, unless you are some kind of abomination."

Marian laughs. She can't help herself; she throws her head back and laughs. "Good thing I'm a woman, then," she says. She takes a breath and gestures at the putrid mess of guts behind her. "Anyway, how can you be scared of someone who pukes in the bushes every time she kills a person? How evil can I really be?"

His brows rise. "You vomit every time you kill a man?" his nose wrinkles. "I suppose you are not in danger of becoming a blood mage, then."

"You look more prone to self-mutilation than I do, dude," she answers, stepping away from the barf in the bushes and leaning against the wall. "Look, I meant to say I'm really sorry about that, uh, guy, Danarius. What you told me—that shit's really wrong." She shudders and looks at the ground. "It scares the shit out of me, thinking someone could actually do that to another person."

"It is common in Tevinter, where I am from," he says. She looks at him again, startled. His tone has no bitterness or sorrow or anger; he's just stating a fact. That chills her worse than any of the other stuff he's said. "The most powerful mages become magisters—men and women who have abilities like yours."

Marian shifts away from the wall, uncomfortable with the way the stones press into her shoulders. "Bethany's a mage, too. She's pretty powerful," she protests.

But Fenris shakes his head and steps closer. "I saw both of you. Your sister is also a mage, but you are far more powerful. Perhaps it is your boldness, or your strangeness, but you destroyed more of those creatures than the rest of us put together," he says. She wants to tell him that his stare looks like laser beams or a lightsaber, but then she'd have to explain all of that, and he'd probably freak out more. Not a good plan, now that he's almost calm.

"Look," she sighs and pushes her bangs out of her eyes. "I never asked to shoot lightning from my fingertips. Yeah, I thought it was pretty badass at first, but then I realized you have to spend your whole life worrying about it. Every fucking minute I have to remember that I can't just set some jackass on fire for staring at my boobs or that my hair gets lightning in it if I get too pissed off. And all that static electricity makes my hair _so_ frizzy," she adds, grinning to take the bitter edge off her words. It's too late to take it back. She's spilled more to this strange elf than she has to any of her siblings, even Garrett.

"You would set a man on fire for staring at your… chest?" he asks, his brows drawing together.

Marian can't help laughing again. "Some of the guys at the Hanged Man have it coming. If you don't literally swat them away, they make a grab at you," she says, reaching toward his chest and miming invisible breasts that he doesn't have with her hands. Fenris looks bewildered and so she crosses her arms, continuing, "Lucky for Bethany and I, each of us has a big, hulking twin brother ready to growl or punch or stab any men who get too near."

"If you are attempting to frighten me with the threat of large brothers, you should be aware that I have no such crude intentions," the elf says. His gaze flickers and Marian could swear he glances at her chest.

"Oh, you could come in there yelling at me for being a mage and they'd probably be grateful that a guy was talking to me without having to be drunk or pathetic," she grins at him. "You should come over there with me. Meet them. You'd probably like Garrett as long as you don't go accusing me of being an evil witch or anything. Do that and he might punch you worse than he would if you groped me with both hands."

"I shall endeavor neither to accuse you nor to grope you, in that case," he says, and she detects an unforeseen note of dry humor in his tone. It's too dim to be sure in the little entryway, but she thinks he might be blushing a bit, too.

She has to test the theory, especially in light of his possible chest-glance. Marian reaches over her head and arches her back, stretching and then planting her palms on her lumbar spine and tilting back until she hears a satisfying pop. When she straightens, she smirks at his expression—yes, he is blushing, and his eyes are a little wide, and his mouth a little bit open, and his ears look almost as if they have drooped a little in a melted kind of way.

"Well?" she says, giving him that dazzling grin that used to make Garrett and their parents groan because everyone knew she was getting whatever she wanted. She holds a hand out toward him.

"Well, what?" he asks, bewildered.

"Are you coming with me, or are you gonna stand here talking my ear off all night?" she grins, wiggling her fingers as if to motion him closer. He takes a step nearer and stares at her hand as if afraid it will turn into a snake. Who knows, maybe he saw something like that before. Not really a spell she'll be learning. She doesn't really need snake hands.

"I suppose…" he says, still eyeing her hand until she lowers it.

"Come on," Marian raises her eyebrows, "I'll let you buy me a round to celebrate surviving another day in Kirkwall and I'll even let you scare off a drunk or two. You seem pretty good at the whole intimidating-growl thing."

Fenris smirks and takes a step toward her. "Very well, you have enticed me… Hawke," he says, walking alongside her from the estates into the Chantry Courtyard. "If it is not too presumptuous, may I ask your first name? It seems as if it might be confusing with so many Hawke siblings around."

She opens her mouth to answer, grinning at his overtures, but a shout stops both in their tracks before they can descend the stairs to Lowtown.

"Marian!" cries female voice across the square. The clank of feet running in metal boots accompanies the shout and Aveline rounds the corner. "Marian," she gasps, winded as if she's just run from the mountains outside the city.

"Aveline, what's going on?" she asks the guardswoman. "I thought the boys went to see you this afternoon."

"Marian, it's Carver," the redhead answers, staring with sad green eyes as Marian's stomach drops out. "We were over on Sundermount and he was stabbed."

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><p>The biggest difference between the siblings that I hope to convey in the next few chapters is that Garrett has a specific concept of justice and nobility, but he doesn't let that interfere with practicality. Marian, while she is haphazard and troublemaking, hides something of a bleeding heart under all the jokes and sarcasm. This is going to become much more conflict-y when it comes to matters of, say, blood magic, stolen tomes, and the way Marian dances. (dancing next chapter, I promise!)<p> 


	4. Frictionless Surfaces

**Thank you reviewers! I love you guys!**

A/N: Here we have the beginning of the Major Conflict. I've taken the Feynriel quest and changed it so they just go directly to the Fade, because I've watched Inception too many times. I should also note that I make some commentary about the default Hawkes, like why aren't the guys more muscular? And as pretty as chick Hawke is, she does have kind of a manly jaw and mouth, and dear GOD, Bioware- if you can animate her shaking her ass when she runs, can't you animate her sitting like a woman, not a man taking a dump? I based a lot of her personality off a good friend of mine, including her appearance, because my friend could be a model if she were dumb enough.

Warnings: Inception-ness, reversal of worlds, swearing, Garrett hating on Fenris, and I'm sorry if you're a Red Sox fan.

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><p>The first thing Garrett notices is that his hands are his again. The skin looks tan again, the short fingers with torn cuticles and the broad palms he's known his whole life. He stares at his hand for a moment and sees, below it, the loose jeans he's accustomed to and the scuffed Adidas. After a second he pulls the hem of his tee shirt up and looks at his stomach, the ridges of a six-pack he earned in high school and never gave up. It always confused him that muscles weren't as well defined in the medieval world; after all, he runs around with a big-ass sword all day.<p>

"Garrett?" breathes a voice behind him. Familiar, too familiar—it's Marian's voice, without that British accent.

He turns to see his sister, his _real_ sister, stepping through the mist. "Marian?"

Her tan and her eyes, changing color from gray to green, and her hair, the hair she's been so vain of, hair he never thought he'd miss. She has amazing hair, long and golden, tousled with waves that hang past her shoulders and over her weird, wavy earlobes. She's even dressed like his sister, in skinny jeans and a tank top that hikes up to reveal the Zodiac tattoos on her hips.

"Holy shit, we're home," she cries, launching her lanky form at him. He sees the sparkle of tears in her eyes and hugs her back, spinning her off the ground like their father used to.

"We made it," he gasps, crushing her ribs and setting her down and grinning at her.

"We just travelled between universes and back again," she giggles. Giddy, she spins around on her toe. "Oh my god, we just really did that! Or shared dreaming or something. Whatever, we've made history. We have to figure out exactly what we— oh, _shit_."

Garrett looks in the direction her eyes have gone and sees, to his dismay, that Fenris and Varric stand a few feet away, dressed as they always are, staring at them in absolute confusion.

"Garrett?" the dwarf says, frowning. His eyes shift and widen. "_Marian_?"

He exchanges glances with his sister, who looks miserable. "Uh, yeah, it's us," he answers for both of them, aware of how his voice has reverted to the monotone Maryland accent of his normal life. "Did we accidentally bring you guys back, too?"

"What… are you?" Fenris asks, his deep voice taking on a dangerous note and his hand reaching for his sword.

Marian takes a breath. "We're scientists. Sort of. I'm actually a medical school dropout and he's a Ph.D. student," she says, and Garrett wants to pinch her for blathering. "We kind of built a machine, back in our reality, and it sent us into these other people's bodies, but it was still our minds, and now I can do magic and Garrett can hack shit up with a giant sword and there's no indoor plumbing and I miss my iTunes." A distressed, sniffling noise escapes her.

"I think we've somehow gotten back," Garrett explains, reaching out to pat his sister on the back. "This is what we actually look like, back in our world. And what we dress like, and how we talk."

Varric snorts. "This is the Fade," he says, without his usual humor. "Everyone says it's tricky, but I guess it got to you two pretty bad, huh?"

Marian paces back and forth, thinking aloud. "If this is some kind of construct of our minds, or a shared dream, then it makes sense that we'd imagine ourselves like this," she says, gesturing to encompass herself. Garrett sees Fenris stare at her tattoos a moment and then her face, but Marian remains oblivious. "I mean, there aren't enough mirrors around Lowtown for me to remember what I look like most of the time, but I know what I'm _supposed_ to look like, and that's the image of myself that's in my mind, which means it's the self I've projected into this dream-state."

"You are supposed to look like… this?" Fenris says, his brows rising to hide under white bangs. He gestures toward her with one hand.

A hurt look crosses Marian's face and Garrett almost punches the elf, dream or not.

"What he means is, damn, Marian. You got robbed when you switched bodies if _this_ is how you're supposed to look," Varric supplies. He gives her a broad, charming grin.

"Huh?" she looks bewildered.

Fenris jerks his head in a short nod. "You are very beautiful," he says, staring at her face for a second and then looking away, just as abrupt as the nod.

Marian flushes and Garrett looks at her with a bewildered frown. He's never thought about how attractive his sisters are. Now, looking at her and recalling the dark haired girl of the past year, he realizes he got damn lucky when she was transplanted in that body. Not that she was ugly, not in the least. But the boyish, short hair and the strong jaw with a wide mouth and thin lips helped to detract from her femininity. The real Marian has soft features, full lips, high cheekbones and deep-set Bette Davis eyes ringed with thick lashes. Even his sister's grating personality can't hide her real looks.

"Okay, okay, we get it," he grumbles, looking back at their other companions. "God, the 'your sister's hot' shit is like high school all over again." He catches Fenris looking at her chest and glares, making the elf startle and look away.

Varric stares behind him and after a second of searching for somewhere to focus his awkward gaze, so does Fenris. Their eyes look huge, mouths opening in wonder. Garrett turns and chokes as the mist around them clears to reveal that they are standing on the White House lawn, with a strange mash of D.C., New York City, Boston and Seattle forming around them. Buildings grow from the ground—the Lincoln Memorial and the Plaza Hotel, the Institute of Contemporary Art and the Space Needle. Streets form around them as cars drive by and people start to walk out of the buildings and along the streets.

"What the fuck?" he whispers, staring.

Marian grins and everyone turns to look at her. "What? I mean, we can't just walk through nothing, can we?" she says.

Garrett narrows his eyes. "What have you done?" he asks her.

She sighs and crosses her arms, which hikes her shirt up over the tattoos. He wants to reach out and tug the hem down to hide her skin from the elf's roving eyes. "First of all, dreams are what the dreamer creates in their subconscious. All you have to do—"

"I understand lucid dreaming, Marian," he snaps, waving a hand at Yankee Stadium as it pops up across the street from Fenway Park. Fans pour out of both and start brawling. He resists an urge to jump in and beat up a few Sox fans, and not just because they're dirty Massholes. "And I understand that you've taken it upon yourself to recreate this fucked-up version of the real world. Is this supposed to be funny?"

"First of all," she retorts, jamming her finger in his chest, "We've proved that there are at least two worlds that are completely different by travelling from one to the next and both are very tangible, which means there is no 'real' world. Secondly, I don't know what we're doing here, but we need some means to travel and some places to travel to. Our world has the technology to travel fast, so I thought of it, but when I tried to create it, I couldn't pick one place. By the way, there might be a few European cities mixed in, too. And a Tokyo crosswalk or two."

"Your world is very strange," Fenris comments, his head tilted back to stare up the glass wall of Trump Towers. He points as a car whizzes by. "What are those things?"

Marian whirls away, smirking at her tattooed elf. "Those are called cars. And that's how we're going to be getting around," she says, marching toward the street. As they watch, a bright orange Corvette Z06 pops out of the pavement with the click of locks opening, not that a convertible needs them. She turns around as she reaches the driver's side and shoots a smug look at Garrett. "Are you guys coming, or what?"

Varric whistles. "That looks shiny and… orange," he comments. "We're supposed to be looking for that Feynriel kid. Any idea where he'd be? And can that car thing get us there?"

Garrett walks toward the car. "I'm driving," he announces. Not just because he really wants to drive that car, either. Marian's driving has always set his teeth on edge and he has a feeling it will be worse if she knows she's driving through a conscious projection of her subconscious desires.

"You know how to drive standard?" she asks, with a little glitter in her eyes.

"Yeah, and I didn't need to date a mechanic to figure it out," he answers, feeling a grim satisfaction as annoyance flashes over her face.

"Hey Hawke and Sparklefingers," Varric yells, drawing attention away from their argument. "Do you know where we're going?"

"Don't call me Sparklefingers, Short-Round," Marian scowls, resting her hips against the hood of the car and crossing her arms.

"Do you know where we're going?" Garrett asks the dwarf, ignoring his sister's clever comeback. "I have no idea what all this crap is and—" he shoots a withering look at Marian "—I can't really control any of it, can I?"

Fenris, who has been staring at Marian as she leans against the car like he just discovered _Motor Trend Magazine_, lifts his hand to point somewhere along the skyline. "Could that be where the boy is?" he asks.

Garrett looks up to see that the elf is pointing at the top of the Empire State Building, where a bright halo of light shimmers from the observation deck. He turns his stare to Marian and rolls his eyes. "Really? How much more cliché can you get?" he asks her.

She shrugs and taps the hood of the car. "Clichés are easier than new material when you're whipping a world up on the fly," she answers, dangling the keys between her fingers and rattling them. "Still wanna drive?"

Snatching the keys from her hands, Garrett glances at the other two. "Fenris, you get shotgun," he announces, pointing at the elf and not missing Marian's expression of dismay. He doesn't know who he trusts less in the backseat of a speeding convertible—his sister or whatever man is with her—but he doesn't want to find out.

"What is a shotgun?" asks Fenris, turning his cool stare from the shimmer to the car.

"Sit there." Garrett points at the passenger side, hopping over his door into the driver's seat. He can't help grinning. He's always wanted to do that and he wishes Merrill were here to see how suave he looks driving sex on wheels. Even if it's orange.

The elf looks at Garrett with his head tilted to the side and then imitates him with uncanny grace. Varric and Marian pile in the back and he depresses the clutch as he turns the ignition. He gives it a touch of gas and they shoot forward, still in first gear.

"I might have made the roads a frictionless surface," Marian calls from the back.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he yells back as he shifts into second, then third, whipping through a roundabout with enough centrifugal force to slam him against his seat. The buildings blur by and Garrett wants to see if Fenris or Varric is freaking out yet, but he's afraid to take his eyes off the road. The speedometer reads 110 in a mash of Lower Manhattan, Harvard Yard, and Picadilly Circus.

He hears her laughing and sees Fenris turn in his peripheral vision. At first he figures the elf is watching his sister (again) with her blonde hair waving behind her and the manic glitter of her eyes. But Fenris points one of his weird, spiky gloves to their left. "I believe we have reached our destination."

"Slide!" shouts Marian, drawing out the 'i.'

He shudders at the idea of pulling an e-brake slide on a frictionless surface, but then again, she created this world. His hand closes on it, thumb finds the button, and he spins the wheel as he jerks the brake. For a second the world whirls to the howl of brakes and tires. The dwarf and the elf hiss at the noise and Marian's laughter overpowers the other sounds. And the car stops, parallel parked in an impossible spot.

Garrett stares around and lets out a whoop, hopping back out of the car and staring at it. He shakes his head, grinning, and pat the hood of the car. "I gotta get me one of these," he says, glancing at Marian as she vaults the door.

"That was…" Varric begins, stumbling out of the car. He stares up at Garrett, still swaying a bit, and grins. "That was _awesome_. Better than _Star Wars_."

Fenris looks a bit green, which suits Garrett just fine. Maybe the elf will puke on Marian and she'll loose interest. But he just grips the car for a moment, steadying himself, and shakes his head before staring up the stone rise.

"Let's hope the elevator works," Garrett says, leading the group inside. "I don't wanna walk up eighty-six flights of stairs."

"It's the top deck," Marian says. "Hundred and second floor."

They walk through the lobby and Garrett glances around at the shining metallic ceiling and walls, at the emblazoned relief of the building hovering over the elevators. He walks through the empty lobby and up to the elevator, which dings.

"Guys," Garrett turns to look at the others. Both stare around in wonder and confusion; Varric keeps poking at the walls with hands and crossbow alike while Fenris turns in a slow circle. "This is going to go up really fast. So just remember to swallow or yawn, because your ears are going to pop like three times. And, Varric, stop poking things. It's not real gold."

"I know that," Varric snorts. "I'm a dwarf."

When they get on the elevator, things start getting weirder. The overhead light flashes as they shoot skyward, and the walls vibrate. Music starts playing, faint at first but growing louder, and Garrett recognizes the opening chords of Bloc Party's 'Hunting for Witches.'

"Do you hear that?" Fenris asks.

"Wait for it, wait for it," says Marian, holding up a finger. The discordant static of digitalized voices gathers that eerie guitar, then drums, and few measures later the guitar picks up the rapid melody. Garrett watches, mortified, as his sister starts dancing in the cramped space of the elevator. The elevator pings and the doors slide open.

The music gets louder as the singer begins _I am sitting… on the roof of my house_. Marian leads them through the doors and as they watch, her tank top grows into a dress, the sort with an overcomplicated back and a long, waving skirt. Her flip-flops weave into strappy sandals and when she tosses her head, Garrett glimpses the diamond earrings their parents bought her when she graduated college. He opens his mouth to say something but his tee shirt is doing the same thing, the sleeves lengthening and darkening. He feels pressure at his throat and reaches up to feel a tie knotted there, growing to hang down the front of his chest.

The refrain blasts through the core room, once full of tourists and stupid I heart NY tee shirts and key-chains, now conspicuous in their absence. _So I go hunting for witches_.

"Why are we dressed for prom?" he grumbles. He glances at their companions to see Fenris and Varric, utterly bewildered as their armor morphs into three-piece suits. The elf's tie is green and his shirt is black, the dwarf's tie is gold and his shirt is dark red. Garrett glances down to see he's wearing a dark blue tie with a blue-gray shirt, and has to give Marian credit for dressing him so well. If he owned a suit, this would be the suit he owned.

"Because it looks a lot better than your wrinkled button-downs," she answers, smirking as she looks over her shoulder at them. "Wow. You guys all look amazing."

"As do you," Fenris says.

"Dude, stop hitting on my sister," Garrett sighs, glancing at the elf. "Or at least not in front of me."

Fenris looks confused. "I have not struck her."

Obstinate motherfucking—Garrett makes an irritable gesture as if he's imagining tearing the elf's head in two. "I mean, stop saying shit like that to her. 'Oh, you're beautiful, you look wonderful,' blah, blah, blah."

"But it is true."

Garrett throws his hands up and walks faster to catch up with his sister. "Fuck it. I give up."

They step outside, onto the outer deck, and see a teenaged boy trembling, curled in fetal position in the corner. Marian walks straight toward him, but the hair on the back of Garrett's neck prickles. He yells and reaches an incoherent hand out just as the boy changes, becoming a fearsome grinning beast, all dripping jaws and slimy skin, clinging to Marian's arm.

"Get away from it," he yells to Marian, but she stares at the monster with make-up blackened tears trailing down her cheeks. His heart pounds through the sudden hollow of his abdominal cavity.

"Sweetheart," says the beast, and its voice sounds like chains being dragged over steel grating. It brushes a piece of Marian's hair out of her face with clawed hands, leaving a scratch of blood. "Come home. You have the power to come home. All you have to do is trust me."

"Mom?" she whispers. "Oh my god, Mom." With a sob, she lunges forward and hugs the slimy, horrible creature. It smiles at Garrett and the others over her shoulder, baring sharp fangs.

"A demon," Fenris growls, and Garrett hears the hiss of the elf's sword leaving its sheath. He wishes he had his sword, or better yet, a high-powered rifle. The air in his hand thickens and he almost drops the sudden weight as his claymore materializes, blinking and glancing at his companions who look just as confused.

No time to worry about where the weapon came from. He steps closer to the demon, hefting the sword in his real body and finding that it moves just as well, if not better. "Get the fuck away from my sister," he snarls.

The demon laughs and it sounds like every horrible noise he's heard—screaming people and burning houses and nails on a chalkboard and cars slamming into each other and glass shattering. It stands and it's huge, bigger than the ogre, all twisted limbs and sharp claws.

Marian turns and Garrett feels sick. It's his sister's face, her body, but her eyes are completely black. No white, no iris, just endless black. The mascara streaks and the cut on her cheek add to the image, turning her from a woman into a monster.

"No," whispers a young voice behind him. Garrett glances back to see a teenaged boy raise shaking hands. "Let us go, demon!"

A bolt of lightning shoots from the kid's hand, right at Marian, and he yells. She bats it away, grinning, and all hell breaks loose. Overhead, the lights pop out, exploding in showers of sparks and glass. The building sinks, trembling so hard that he and the others are thrown to the concrete.

"Marian," Garrett yells, struggling to his feet. The weird modern world she created disappears, leaving them standing on a darkened street. "Marian, that's not mom! Look at it! It's not our mother!"

He hears the whine of a crossbow bolt being fired and sees the blur of Fenris attacking the demon. Lightning crackles again, but this time the strange teenager aims for the demon as well. After a second, Garrett joins the fray, still shouting at his sister. He doesn't know what he's saying anymore, blabbering about their childhood and their parents, about high school and the house they grew up in.

His sword sinks through tough hide and the demon makes a high-keening noise before erupting into dust. When he turns to see his sister, she stares at them, the black seeping out of her eyes. Garrett runs over just as she collapses, and a second later, the rest of the world collapses, too.

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><p><strong>Yes, it has been determined<strong>- Garrett will be the Champion and Marian the Shaper. Also, Feynriel is kind of a weenie for being so super-powerful, so I stole his powers and gave them to someone else. Besides, every good Chosen One has a super-powerful sidekick that could kill them anytime they wanted (cough, Buffy and Willow, cough cough).


	5. Commander Moustache

_Thank you lovely reviewers for the love. As for fan art, I welcome it! If anyone wants a fan art challenge, I'd love to see Marian, Garrett, Varric and Fenris standing on top of the Empire State building in formal wear. Please do send me a link if you make any._ :D

**Warnings:** Swearing and angst, Carver becoming a Warden and not as funny as the last chapters.

**A/N:** Because there are two Hawkes, I divided up the party members between them for the Deep Roads, so in this chapter and the next one, Garrett and Marian will have four companions to start with and be minus a sibling by the end, like the game. I apologize for the angst, but I don't really think there's a lot of humor in the whole Carver-becomes-a-Warden/Bethany-gets-taken-to-the-Circle situations.

I pretty much assume everyone on earth has heard Bloc Party and since 'Hunting For Witches' was all over the radio a few months ago, I didn't post a link last chapter. (But ask and I'll rectify it- the lead singer is too hot not to share.) And if anyone hasn't heard the song 'Creator' by Santogold yet, then GO LISTEN TO IT! .com/watch?v=40w-1_F_Sww

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><p>Marian thought the Deep Roads couldn't get any worse, but then Bartrand locked them in that fucking room. The thought of frying his ass kept her moving for days, weeks, struggling through rocky outcroppings and searching down winding tunnels, fighting weird rock creatures and even a giant rock monster.<p>

"We're about a week from the surface if we're not lucky," Varric announces and she lets the group stop for rest and a few bites of their dwindling rations.

"And if we _are_ lucky?" she snorts, not believing that can happen. Not after everything.

"We'll stumble over Bartrand's corpse along the way," he says, catching her eye with that deadly glimmer. She feels a grim smile gripping her face in response.

"Let's hope," she answers, glancing at her assembled companions. Anders has a wilted look about him, the slump that's become pronounced with every passing day in the caverns. Fenris has no expression, just a determined set to his jaw and shoulders that contrasts with his usual fugitive slouch. For once the two don't bicker, just passing the canteen back and forth and ignoring each other.

She doesn't see Carver and for a second she panics, looking for her brother with desperate eyes. But a distinct retching noise comes from behind some rocks and she walks toward the sound just as he emerges, wiping his mouth with a hand.

"Are you okay?" she asks, frowning at him. His dark hair clings to his forehead in sweaty chunks and heavy circles underline his dark eyes.

He shrugs and sways as he walks back toward the group. "It's this stench," he answers. "Bloody Darkspawn… thought I'd never smell them again after we outran the Blight."

Marian doesn't answer. All the hot dry air down here, full of dust and smoke, makes her voice ache. She follows her brother back to the small group and sits with him as Fenris offers her the canteen. But she watches Carver, sees how he rinses his mouth and refuses the piece of bread Varric offers him.

She tells herself she'll keep a closer eye on her little brother. They all have to get out of here alive, especially him. Marian promises herself she'll stick close, but when they stand again, her mind shifts back to that single purpose: getting out of here.

Maybe it's the ruthless pace she's been pushing. Maybe it's because she doesn't want to stop, or because she can't stop thinking about the exit. Maybe it's because they have so much fucking gold and treasure in their packs that it's weighing everyone down. Maybe she doesn't hear anyone asking her to stop because she's been humming under her breath, singing every song she ever liked and a few she doesn't.

"I… I think I need to rest," Carver's voice breaks through her off-key rendition of Santogold's _Creator_. She halts, no longer trying to mimic the island-y accent, and turns just as her brother drops to the ground in a boneless heap.

"Carver!" she yelps, sprinting over to pull his head and shoulders in her lap—shit he's solid—pushing pieces of sticky, tangled hair away from his eyes. Damp strands come away in her hands and she stares, revolted and frightened, noticing for the first time that his veins have become visible under drawn skin, forming a black-stained web along his arms and neck that creeps onto his cheeks.

"The Blight," whispers Varric somewhere behind her. She doesn't look around to see him, doesn't want to turn toward all the pity radiating from their companions.

"Oh, shit, shit," she whispers, leaning over and stroking his stubbly cheeks. She wishes she knew what he'd looked like as a baby, but the only image she comes up with is Garrett, who'd been the adorable sort of pudgy until about age two, when he got the hang of running. "Carver, why didn't you say something? Oh, shit, we're gonna fix this. I promise. We're gonna figure something out… Anders and I can heal you, we can just burn this shit right outta you."

"We can't," Anders' voice echoes through the cavern, chilling her. She'd rather hear funeral bells. "The only cure I know for the Blight is to become a Grey Warden."

Now she looks back to him, desperate with that small scrap of hope he offers. "What do we have to do?" she asks, hearing that shrill note of terror in her voice and hating it as much as she hates Bartrand, as much as she hates herself for dragging her little brother down here instead of Garrett, as much as she hates the fucking Darkspawn who caused this.

Varric and Anders flinch from her words, winces crossing their faces in spite of the sadness in their eyes. Even Fenris has an expression like horror, the light of his green eyes dimmed and his dark brows contracted in a sorrowful frown.

"Goddammit, Anders, _tell me what I have to do_," she screams. The shriek bounces over the walls and fills the room, the agony of fear and loss etched into the stone.

"There's a group of Grey Wardens camped only a day's journey from here," he explains, looking uncomfortable at the mention of yet another obligation he abandoned. "But we have to move quickly, before they leave. And… there's still a chance he won't survive the Joining."

"It's better than letting him die on the fucking floor," she mutters. Her eyes fall on the stoic elf. "Carry him," she orders, half-expecting an argument about slavery and demands that she's in no mood for.

But Fenris moves to kneel beside her without hesitating. The spikes on his gauntlets brush against her hand as he shifts Carver's weight into his lithe arms. He stands without effort, looking down at her as if awaiting further orders. Marian rises as well, reaching to touch her brother's clammy face once more before she starts jogging in the direction Anders points.

She forces herself onward, wishing she had thought to bring a flask or two down here (Varric did, but those are long since empty). Numb shock creeps over her, propelling her limbs onward. At one point Fenris trips, and she turns at the noise just in time to see the elf twist as he goes down, hunching to protect Carver's semi-conscious body from the impact. A sickening crack of bone resounds and Fenris smacks the side of his face on a rock.

Marian realizes as they stop that he dislocated his shoulder when he fell. Varric and Anders carry her brother to the smoothest surface they can find and she leaves Carver with them while she checks on Fenris.

"I'm gonna check the bleeding wound first," she announces as she crouches over him. He sits propped up with his good hand while the bad arm hangs with that sorry flop of a useless limb.

At first he flinches when she reaches toward his face with a gloved hand, but she shifts forward to kneel on his thighs with her knees jabbing against the femoral arteries so he can't fling her off and run. With gritted teeth and flashing eyes she meets his gaze and he doesn't resist when she brushes the hair away from the wound and probes the edges with trained fingers.

"Fucking facial injuries," she mutters. The cut isn't deep, but with all the surface capillaries it's bleeding like a sonofabitch. She shifts her knees out of his nerve endings, settling to straddle his outstretched legs. "This'll go faster if I just heal it."

He nods and shuts his eyes. She can see the muscles of his jaw clenching as she removes the gloves and lets the ever-present tingle in her fingers smooth across the wound. Green light glows in the centimeter of space between her fingers and his temple. The skin knits together, leaving just fallen blood streaking the side of his face.

Marian puts her gloves back on when her spell ends. In the time she's known Fenris, she's figured out that his whole fear of physical contact has to do with his markings, not any kind of horrific past of molestation. His problem has more to do with skin-to-skin contact than anything else.

"Okay, this part's gonna suck," she tells him, turning his chin to face her with a leather-clad thumb and forefinger that fit just inside the lyrium lines running to his lower lip. He opens his eyes to look at her and inhales through his nose, a sharp breath that she feels against her mouth, making her realize how close their faces are. And their hips. She feels the telltale stir of hardness and shifts off his lap, so fast it startles even her.

"I have suffered dislocated shoulders before," he mutters through gritted teeth, staring forward and not looking at her. He continues, and it occurs to her that he's trying to distract both of them from what just happened, and what it might have led to. "Danarius would do it and chain my arms over my head for a night if I made a mistake. After he put my arms back in their sockets, he would make me demonstrate my swordsmanship in the arena for his friends, knowing that every movement was agony."

Marian winces. He doesn't talk about the tortures he suffered often, not that she blames him. But he always keeps it vague, offering no details and few words. Imagining that kind of mocking torture makes her skin crawl, but knowing that she had planned to do the same thing to him—albeit to save Carver's life, not out of any sadistic impulse—makes her stomach turn.

"It's okay. I can carry him for a while," she says, gripping his arm at the bicep with her right hand and just above the elbow with her left. "On three."

He nods and takes a breath as she lines the head of his humerus up with the empty space in his scapula. Marian meets his eyes, staring at him, compelling him with all her will to meet her stare as her grip tightens.

"One," she says. _Pop_. She jams the bone back in place and has to give him credit for not screaming. He just shudders and exhales with the rapid force of taking a punch in the gut, clenching his eyes and teeth against the pain.

When he opens his eyes again, he regards her with a serious stare. "I am grateful. But you cannot possibly carry Carver. He is much larger than you are," he says.

"Watch me," she answers, her jaw tightening. She stands up and moves toward where Anders and Varric are giving her brother sips of water. He can still swallow, so at least that's something.

"Marian," he groans, struggling to sit forward as she approaches. "I can walk. Just… help me walk."

With help from the others, Marian gets her brother to his feet, wrapping his arm over her shoulders and hanging on with both hands around his waist. She staggers under his weight until Anders moves to Carver's other side and shifts the lion's share onto his own shoulders. She feels Fenris' eyes burrowing into her back as they limp onward.

The hours stretch out and Marian has no idea how long she's been awake for. Her eyes burn from fatigue or unshed tears or just all the damn _red_ everywhere. All the strange echoing cave noises sound like weeping ghosts as they mix with the noise of Carver's labored breathing. There's this wet rattle there that makes her blood run cold and she tightens her grip on him as they jog along.

When she stumbles, Fenris tries to take her place at Carver's side. She bats at him with a hand and after a moment he falls in step beside her, looping an arm around her waist as he pulls the hand she swatted him with around his shoulders. She doesn't even wonder where the spiky things went as she feels him propping her up and propelling her forward. Varric takes point, running at full dwarf-speed and even running backward to pass food and water to people so they don't have to stop.

It turns out Anders was right; they damn near stumble over the trio of men packing up camping supplies on the lava-warmed stone of the floor. She and Fenris lower Carver to sit down as Anders and Varric talk to the leader. Whatever they say doesn't matter; she hears the murmur of voices arguing but her frantic heartbeat drowns them out. If they don't help him, he has hours at best.

She piles their bedrolls along his side and sits half behind him, like a mother with an overgrown child leaning back against her chest. His weight stifles her, makes it hard to breathe, but she doesn't care. One hand smoothes his hair and she draws the other arm around his shoulders, burying her wet eyes against the blackened veins of his neck.

"Tell me…" Carver coughs and spits black bile out. He doesn't even have the strength to clear his chin, so she reaches up and wipes the decay-scented vomit away. "Tell me the rest of _Braveheart_."

Marian takes a breath that sounds like a sob and says, "Well, when William Wallace went to meet with the nobles of Ireland, it turned out they had a plot to betray him. He fought and fought, but they knocked him out and turned him over to the King of England."

Carver reaches to grip her hand, their fingers tangling, and she feels wetness dripping onto her knuckles. He's crying, too, silent and terrified as a child as she explains how they tortured Mel Gibson at the end of the movie. She wishes he could have picked something else, something happy like _The Goonies_.

"And as the executioner lifted his axe, William Wallace looked out in the crowd of jeering peasants, he saw her again, his wife, the woman he'd been fighting for this whole time. And he knew he was finally coming home." She takes a breath, trying not to sound too weepy. "He felt the wind of the blade coming and he took one last breath and yelled, 'Freedom!' William Wallace was finally completely free."

"Did the Scottish ever get free of the British?" he asks, his voice tired. "Did they keep fighting after William Wallace died?"

"Yes," she whispers, trying to force a smile that feels like a grimace, "The Brits signed a treaty with Scotland a few years later, recognizing their independence. William Wallace's friends fought for freedom, and never forgot how much he gave up so they could have it."

"Thank you, Marian," Carver says, weaving his other hand with their already-clasped fingers. "I—you've been a wonderful sister. I know you never meant to be my sister and I know she's gone, but I want you to know that you _are_ my sister. You're my sister and I love you."

Before she can answer, the mustached man she recognizes as the Grey Warden leader crouches in front of them. "We must undertake the Joining now if he is to have any chance at surviving," he says with a heavy French accent.

"Okay," she says, biting back a sniffle. She stands, and with help from Anders and Fenris, gets Carver to his feet. She turns and hugs him, feeling him return the embrace, and wondering if this is how a broken heart really feels. His hug isn't the strong sort of hug he gave her when she announced they had enough money for the expedition, but a weak hug with floppy arms.

"Marian," he pulls back and stares at her with glassy eyes, "Take care of Mother and Bethany and Garrett. And tell them that I love them and I'll miss them."

She's shaking her head so hard she feels dizzy. "No. You're gonna get to tell them yourself," she says. "I love you Carver, you little shit. I love you so much." And then she's sobbing and hugging him again.

Hands close around her shoulders and pull her away from her brother, a firm grip that turns her around, pulling her into a hug. She sees a flash of white hair and green eyes and lets Fenris hold onto her, not only embracing her but also keeping her away from Carver. But she insists on watching as the Wardens mutter some words and give her brother a cup of dark fluid that reeks of Darkspawn.

She lunges toward them and Fenris holds tighter, pulling her back to his chest and crossing his arms around her waist, grasping her wrists in light fingers to keep her hands down. Helpless to intervene and unable to look away, she watches her brother take a gulp. The cup crashes to the floor and the black liquid splashes. Carver's eyes—no more eyeballs, just glowing whiteness. And that contorted expression of pain as he drops to his knees. He collapses.

Sound comes back and Marian realizes she's crying, struggling against Fenris and swearing with hot tears pouring off her face. He keeps holding onto her as the lead Warden steps up and rolls her brother to his back.

"He has passed his Joining," announces Commander Moustache. "Now we must return to the surface and bring him to Vigil's Keep."

"Let me see," she begs. "Let me check him."

"I am sorry," answers the French guy. "But we must make haste. You must leave now."

"No," she says, her voice rising as she struggles against Fenris. Her feet lift into the air, kicking uselessly at nothing. "No! He's my brother. Let me just see him. Let me at least say goodbye!"

The world twists and the solid metal of the elf's armor presses against her cheek, his arms cradling her to his chest. He holds her tight, turning away, and she can only watch Carver's unconscious form over his shoulder, helpless as he carries her away from the Grey Wardens and her little brother.

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><p><em><strong>I always had an issue with that scene. Hawke's way too cool about tragic family events. <strong>I just don't see any person but a socio being like, 'okay, peace dude,' after hearing that their brother has a 50/50 shot of surviving and even if he does live, they won't see each other anymore._


	6. Half the Deck in Isabela's Tits

**I love all of you reviewers!** To answer the question, yes there is a plot in the works, and it very much has to do with can or can't they leave Thedas and return to Earth... Act 1 has been devoted primarily to introducing the characters and laying down the framework for the events that lie ahead. The events we've seen are what will push the characters into making the decisions that will turn from argument to true conflict.

Sorry the last chapter was kind of a downer... this one has some sad stuff, too, but I did it a bit differently. (There is no hope in the Deep Roads; I am claustrophobic and seasonal affective and totally projected that onto all of the characters that I flung into that hellhole.) And FINALLY some Garrett/Merrill, which I promise will develop in interesting ways, too.

_**Warnings:**_ Isabela vs. Aveline! Macarena references, swearing, schoolboy-crush-harboring Garrett, drinking, gambling, dirty jokes (basically, the Hanged Man) and Bethany getting taken by Templars (I cried when it happened the first time I played the game because it blindsided me).

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><p>When Garrett and Aveline arrive at the Hanged Man, battered and thirsty after an evening of chasing down street gangs, Isabela and Merrill are already there playing cards. Or rather, Isabela is teaching Merrill how to play while she cheats like crazy.<p>

"Oh, come on," he says, grinning as he limps over to the table. One thug tried to cut his leg off, which his armor prevented, but his knee hurts like hell where the blade smacked him. He points at the pirate as he sits beside Merrill. "You have half the deck stuffed in your tits."

"Maker knows what else she has in there," Aveline mutters, taking the seat by Isabela.

"You wish you had half the tits I had, Man-Hands," Isabela answers.

"Slattern."

"Prig."

"Whore."

"Butch."

Garrett is half-tempted to let them go on, but Merrill gives him a pleading look and he interrupts. "I'll buy each of you a round if you stop," he says. It works like a charm; both women fall silent and look at him with sharp jewel eyes.

Merrill giggles. "Will you buy me a drink if I start calling people names and telling dirty jokes?"

Isabela chortles. "You're learning, Kitten," she exclaims, leaning back and crossing her ankles on the table, revealing the expanse of bare legs she refuses to cover, even in a fight.

"I'd buy you one anyway," Garrett leans over until his shoulder nudges hers and grins when the pretty elf girl blushes. "But you can make dirty jokes if you want."

Norah the waitress comes over then with ale for him and Aveline and smiles. "Free drinks for the Guard," she says.

Aveline snorts. "Accept and you wake up in an alley with no pants," she mutters at the woman's retreating back. She shakes her head and sips her ale anyway, sighing with something that sounds like relief.

"You ought to accept more often," Isabela says. "I'll bet you wouldn't be so judge-y if you woke up with no pants."

"And I bet you wouldn't be such a slattern if you wore them," Aveline counters.

"No, I'd still be a slattern. I'd just be less efficient if I was forever pulling pants on and off," Isabela answers, unfazed at the insult.

Garrett enjoys listening to their back-and-forth for a moment, leaning back in his chair and sipping his ale with a lazy grin. In the month that Marian and the boys have been gone in the Deep Roads he's found himself hanging out with all the women in their motley crew and these little gatherings have become something of a nightly tradition, though Bethany doesn't come as often these days. There have been a lot more Templars around the last few weeks and he feels better with her laying low, too. Not to mention his mother has a way of guilt-tripping that manages to scare the shit out of him at the same time, even as a grown man.

"So Garrett," asks Isabela in a feigned casual tone, shuffling the cards and dealing him and Aveline in, "Do you think your sister and that handsome elf of hers have found a nice dark corner in the Deep Roads yet?"

He spits his drink out, spraying the pirate with cheap beer. "Dammit, Isabela, why do you have to ruin a perfectly nice drink?" he grumbles, not bothering to apologize for spitting booze on her.

She blinks and smirks. "I'll take that as a yes," she purrs, pulling the bandana off her hair and wiping her face off. "Not that I blame her, either. If I'd met him first…" she trails off, but the glitter in her eyes says everything her mouth doesn't, which makes him shudder.

Garrett glances at Aveline, hoping for assistance.

"I think they're rather darling, myself," says the guardswoman, scooping up her hand and examining the cards. "The first time I met him he was taking Marian out for drinks and dancing. I'd pay good coin to see him dance, too."

"He always looks at her with those big, sweet puppy eyes when he thinks she isn't looking," Merrill adds, lifting her cards and smiling. "It must be nice to be so in love."

"Not you, too," Garrett says, turning a pleading look at the elf girl. "Can we please change the subject?" There's no freaking way that his sister and Fenris are actually—oh, God. What would their kids look like? The idea makes his stomach turn.

"Do you think they'll come back with anything valuable?" Isabela asks. She winks, holding her cards without appearing to look at them. "Aside from dirty stories, of course."

Merrill laughs again, her cheeks pink. "I'm sure Varric will find lots of shiny things. Dwarves are very good at that," she explains.

"Marian's pretty good at finding shiny things, too," he comments, thinking of the overflowing box of costume jewelry she kept throughout high school. Garrett takes another sip to hide his grin, watching Merrill sidelong. The delicate vines tattooed along her cheeks and forehead and the sweet, smiling lips make him feel like a little boy realizing what 'pretty' means for the first time. He never gets tired of looking at her.

"Like Fenris," Merrill chirps. "Although he's more glowy than shiny."

Garrett sighs again. "We were doing so well," he groans, finally picking up his cards and examining them. Not a bad hand.

He's the only one of the group who can beat Isabela without cheating. In any game of strategy, he's king—the chess club _hated_ him in high school when a 'dumb' jock came in and beat their best player in six moves. His preternatural ability to strategize and plot is one of the reasons Marian seems content to let him lead their group.

"Let's ante up with one silver," Isabela announces. Everyone shuffles and drops their coins to the center of the table.

"I wish you would teach me to play cards," Merrill says to Garrett. She has an expression that combines distress and innocence and sweetness all at once. "You don't cheat, but you always win. I want to be able to do that."

"I'll teach you," he says, trying to act nonchalant. Across the table he sees Isabela and Aveline exchange glances and ignores both of them. "Would you teach me some Dalish history?"

"Ooh, I would love to," Merrill exclaims, so excited that she forgets to hold her cards close. Her hand flashes for everyone to see, and Garrett reaches out to tip her knuckles up before Isabela can get a good look. "Oh, my, did I just show my cards?"

"Both of you just did," smirks Aveline, staring at her hand with a good deal more concentration than she needs to play cards sober.

"But Garrett is such a good player. I'm sure he'd never show his hand to anyone," Merrill says, oblivious to the meaning of the comment. She turns to look at him. "You wouldn't, would you?"

He laughs. "No, she didn't see my cards," he says. "It's a figure of speech."

"Well, what does it mean?" she asks. Garrett loves how naïve she is, how even the simplest things hold wonder for her.

He purses his lips, struggling to figure out how to explain it. "It's like… when you say or do something and people figure out what you're thinking, I guess," he says. He takes another sip from his mug. "Does that kind of make sense?"

"I suppose so. Creators, I don't seem to understand anything about humans," she sounds distressed and Garrett looks at her. She has a faint frown between her brows that wrinkles her tattoos.

Garrett never liked tattoos in his world, the cheap tramp stamps of butterflies or mistranslated Chinese character or the so-called tribal armbands—people trying to 'be unique' by getting the same six things inked on their bodies in the same inevitable places. Even Marian's tattoos are stupid astrology symbols. But Merrill's tattoos are genuine, a symbol of adulthood for her people. And they're pretty.

"You'll figure it out," he says, patting her hand. He's gratified to see a blush spread over her cheeks as she smiles at him.

"Are we playing cards?" asks Isabela, interrupting his thoughts. She has that wicked smirk he's come to associate with impending humiliation, and she doesn't disappoint this time, either. "Or should Man-Hands and I find a new table so we're not interrupting your date?"

"Why haven't you arrested her yet, Aveline?" he asks, glowering at Isabela.

"She hasn't caught me," the pirate smirks, passing in two cards and trying to draw three. Garrett snatches one of the cards and shoves it to the bottom of the deck.

Aveline watches his quick motion and shakes her head with a faint smile. "We ought to hire you for the Guard," she says, turning in two as well. The smile fades as she sees her new hand; poor Aveline has always sucked at keeping a poker face. She sets her cards down. "I fold."

Merrill looks at her cards and Garrett looks at Merrill again, watching as she mouths words under her breath, tapping each card's face with her finger before exchanging one. "I suppose I'll put another silver in, then?" she asks, meeting his gaze with the question in her eyes.

He nods and grins at her, trying to look encouraging. "Yeah, you're getting the hang of it," he says.

Five minutes later he regrets saying that when Merrill sets down a terrible hand and reveals that she exchanged every decent card she had. Garrett dares a glance at Isabela and Aveline, who meet his eyes with raised brows and concerned frowns. He turns back to the pretty elf; she looks like she's about to cry, her large eyes glittering and her mouth turned down in shame and worry.

"I'm so very bad at this," she moans. "Oh, you must all think I'm _such_ an idiot."

Garrett shakes his head. "No, Merrill, it's okay," he says. He figured the game out on the ship to Kirkwall, but he's always been good at games. "Marian's awful, too."

"Is she really?" sniffles the elf. "You're not just saying that to make me feel better, are you?" she asks, glassy eyes staring into his and compelling him to tell the truth.

"Well, she's not as bad as you are, but she _has_ been playing for longer," he says.

"Oh, but she understands so many other things, like how to make a joke and how to get around the city, and all of those strange stories that she tells…" Merrill sighs, her narrow shoulders wilting like sun-deprived flower petals. "Everyone loves Marian."

"Some days I want to shake her teeth out," Garrett offers, hoping it will make her smile. He looks around the table for aid. The pirate avoids his eyes but the guardswoman gives him an encouraging nod. He adds, "And so does Aveline, right?"

Aveline looks awkward and he feels bad for putting her on the spot like that. "When she drinks, yes," she admits at last. "She's a terrible drunk. Not like you. You're sweet and gentle even when you're tanked. Not dancing on tables and goading angry men into fights whilst they're liquored up."

"Oh, but she only did that once," Merrill protests. If possible, Garrett likes her even more for rising to his sister's defense like that. "And she didn't really do anything. Fenris was the one who shoved that man off the table when he tried to get up there with her."

"And I was the one who paid for the damages," Garrett grumbles. Still, at the time he sort of appreciated the help. When it happened he'd been across the room trying to teach Merrill the Macarena. Like most of their friends he'd had one too many and would never have made it over there. It was the only time he'd ever been grateful to Fenris for always hovering so goddamn close to his sister.

Merrill smiles at him, having forgotten her previous insecurities. "That's because you're a good brother," she says. "All of your siblings are lucky to have you."

Aveline snorts. "That clod's head did more damage to that table than the table did to his head," she comments.

"I think I slept with him," Isabela recalls. "Not that night, of course. He was all whimpering and dog-like. But before that."

Garrett shakes his head and douses that image out of his mind with a long gulp of ale. When he sets the cup down he stares at the scantily-clad comrade with his nose wrinkling. "Really? Have you also boinked Bad Poet and Drunk Conspiracy Theorist?"

"No," she says, drawing everyone's cards toward her to shuffle again. Amber eyes flash at him across the table. "I do have _some_ standards. Another game?"

Before Garrett can agree to another round of cards, Merrill shakes her head. "I ought to go home," she says. "It's late and I'm no good at this. I won't be able to eat if I keep losing." She stands up with a sweet if mournful smile.

He stands up so fast he knocks his chair over, and he bends to pick it up with his cheeks flaming. "I'll walk you home," he says. He glances back at Isabela and Aveline, both of whom are laughing with varying degrees of subtlety. He points at the pile of his winnings in the middle of the table. "Drinks on me, ladies."

"Oh, thank you," Merrill says, beaming at him. A few pieces of dark hair escape her ponytail and he wants to reach up and brush them away from the lovely flowers and vines trailing over her cheeks. "You're very kind."

Garrett remembers to flip Isabela off before the door can shut behind him and Merrill. The elf remains oblivious, to his relief, smiling at him. Even in the dim, stinky streets of Lowtown her eyes seem to shine as if lit from within. He stands in front of her for a moment just looking at her, wondering if it would be too forward to kiss her or something. He was never much of a flirt, and even in college he got more girls by accident than out of any pursuit on his part. What he's seen of guys trying to get girls consists of his buddies' awkward overtures and the sleazy pick-up lines men try on his sister. Neither option appeals.

"Shall we go?" asks Merrill, and he realizes he's staring at her and her flushed cheeks. "My, it's warm outside tonight."

He laughs, half of it giddy relief, half because she's just so damn cute. But if she's as nervous as he is, that's got to be a good sign, right? "Yeah," he says, offering her the crook of his elbow and grinning at her. "Shall we, milady?"

"Oh, I'm not a noblewoman," Merrill says, giggling and blushing brighter. He can feel the heat radiating from her face and they aren't even standing that close. "Oh! Oh, you mean it as a joke. Right?" Her green eyes meet his as she wraps her small, delicate hand around his proffered forearm and they start walking toward the Alienage.

He shrugs and his armor makes soft clunking noises. "Not completely. You're a lot prettier than most of the nobles around Hightown. Have you seen some of the stupid crap they wear?" he says, feeling his cheeks heat and grateful for the beard that covers them. He grins again in hopes that she won't notice his slip.

"Are you warm? It seems so very _hot_ outside," she says, blushing and glancing at the ground.

"I'm sorry," he says, wondering if and how it's possible for a man to kick his own ass. Maybe when Carver gets back he'll do the honors. "That was too forward. I mean, you're a lot of great things- you're smart and kind and everyone likes you, and I didn't mean to objectify you like that-" He cuts himself off, wondering why he's apologizing for complimenting her or if it's all because of his stupid Women's Studies class in college.

Merrill looks up at him and smiles as they enter the Slums. "Oh no, no, no," she says. "I didn't mean I was offended, I just- well, no one's ever said anything like that to me. I hardly think I'm as pretty as the noblewomen in Hightown."

Garrett's response is lost to the clatter of metal leaving Gamlen's house. He turns, internal organs turning to soup and washing down to his feet, knowing what he'll see and still shocked when he sees it. His little sister Bethany, the sweetest, most harmless person he's ever met, walks through the door between two Templars. He gives Merrill a shove toward a shaded corner and whispers "hide" before running up and blocking the bottom of the steps.

"What are you doing?" he demands, glaring at the nearest Templar.

The man glares at him and Garrett notes the reddish hair and stubble on his jaw. He's never forgetting the asshole who dragged his little sister off. "Out of the way or you'll be arrested for interfering. This is a dangerous apostate-"

"That's my sister," he snarls, taking a step up toward them. "She's not dangerous."

"Garrett," Bethany whispers, meeting his eyes. He sees the stark resolution and strange calm that pervades her gaze, and it frightens him more than the thought of her being taken. "Don't."

He takes three steps up, hugging her for as long as he can. She doesn't hug him back and he realizes that the Templars are holding her arms to her sides to keep her helpless. He's going to kill them. He's going to chop those motherfuckers into pieces, feed them to a dog, and when the dog shits them out he'll have Marian burn the shit.

"I'll get you out of there," he whispers into her hair. "I promise you. Marian, Carver and I are gonna come and get you if we have to kill every Templar in Kirkwall."

"Step back," the ginger Templar says, dragging him away from Bethany.

Garrett watches, sick to his stomach and helpless as the Templars lead his sister off into the night. He sits on the steps with the hard clash of armor and nothing matters anymore, not the gold they could get from the expedition or even Merrill as she steps from the shadows and sits beside him.

He stares at the path that Bethany disappeared down and, for the first time since he was eight, Garrett Hawke cries.

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><p><em><strong>REAL MEN CRY WHEN IT'S APPROPRIATE!<strong>_ But they don't whine except when they're sick or want sex. Ooh, I'm turning that into some kind of joke in a future chapter.


	7. Talking Out Their Asses

Reviewers, I love you more and more each day. I apologize for the lengthy absence, but now that finals are over, I can get back to updating in a somewhat regular fashion.

**_This chapter gets very dark._** I provide an explanation for how Fenris can't remember ever having had sex while simultaneously explaining his PTSD fear of being touched. And it's super upsetting.

**Warnings: **Swearing, sibling fighting, drinking and then we do have a rated M section. **PLEASE, IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ ANYTHING RATED M,** **_DO NOT READ THE LAST SECTION_**

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><p>The Dalish Keeper calls her a Shaper in such a way that Marian can hear the capital S. Then, using a lot of elven words that make no sense to anyone but Merrill, she explains how Marian can change the Fade itself and shape the world around her with her power. The bottom line seems to be that the Dalish want her to join them in their little wagon-circle to learn how to use her powers. Even Merrill seems excited, though the hint of sad jealousy in her eyes is obvious.<p>

Marian doesn't want to go any more pioneer than she already has, and besides, she knows more than they do about physics. Whatever she can do, she can figure it out better than them.

"Great. So I'm like the Phoenix, just a time bomb about to throw a planet into a star," she mutters. Garrett elbows her and she glares at him, grateful to see Fenris giving him the same look in her peripheral vision. Their little double date has been a bandit-ridden disaster frosted with a clan of pissy elves that hate her brother's new girlfriend. Every time she tries to ask why, Garrett elbows her. She's getting a bruise on her ribs from the plate mail.

"I can't imagine how anyone could throw anything into a star," Merrill chirps, oblivious as ever. "They're so teeny and faraway."

Marian sighs as they leave the camp. "Stars are massive. Has Garrett told you _anything_?" she asks. This time she's expecting the elbow and dodges out of the way. Ever since they moved to Hightown she's felt irritated with him, with the way he condescends to Fenris about squatting and acts like Merrill's a damn angel when she's slitting her wrists and summoning demons. And the fact that he didn't even fight when the Templars took Bethany.

Fenris steps up to walk between her and her brother, fixing her with a stare. "Are you still coming by for lessons tonight?" he asks her. It's their code for 'you can come drink at my house if your brother is really pissing you off.' He really is teaching her how to staff fight, and she really is teaching him to read, but they get their lessons done in the morning.

"You bet your ass," she mutters, glancing up at his unwavering green eyes. "I'm going to beat the crap out of him with a stick one of these days."

"That's why I'm training you," he answers in his usual monotone, but she sees the corner of his mouth turn up. Wouldn't it figure the grouchy, sexy, magic-hating elf would turn out to be her closest friend on their little Island of Misfit Toys?

Garrett heaves an irritated sigh. "I'm right here," he says, his voice too loud.

"Do you trust me?" she whispers to Fenris. He blinks and nods, startled at the question. "Then hang on tight." She steps forward, wrapping her arms around him in a hug and gritting her teeth. The tingle-buzz that always hovers around her grows to surround both of them and she sees a flash in her mind's eye, like a camera through the dark. The world disappears for a second and, with a pop, they reappear in the dilapidated tangle of weeds that used to be Danarius' garden.

He jerks back from her and twists away to throw up in the bushes for a long minute. Marian has no choice but to rub his back and push the hair away from his face. "Sorry," she mutters. "It kind of sucks the first couple times."

Fenris looks up at her, his stricken face gray-green under the tan. "Never do that to me again," he says before bending back over to puke some more.

"Hey, remember the night we met?" she asks when he straightens. She grins and puts an arm around his shoulders to help him stagger to the door. He wraps his hand around her waist even though he doesn't seem to need the help.

"How can I forget?" he asks, eyes flicking toward her. She's relieved to hear the return to his wry humor. "I was prepared to brood and yell at you a bit and then to brood some more, and instead you vomited in my bushes and invited me out for a drink."

"Funny how things change, huh?" she grins as the door opens ahead of them.

"You know I hate it when you do that," he comments as they step inside.

The door shuts behind them and Marian fixes him with an innocent stare. "Do what?" she asks, aware that they still have their arms around each other as they ascend the stairs.

He gives her a long-suffering look that he must have learned from Garrett. "Using magic for simple tasks," he says. "Out in the open, no less. Do you know how much trouble that could cause? What would happen if the Templars found you, too?"

"Guess I'd get to bunk with Bethany again, just like in Lowtown." She shrugs to hide the shudder, but his arm tightens on her waist in such a way that she knows he felt it. They pause in the doorway of his little den. "It's gotta smell better than Gamlen's."

He snorts and leads her to a chair, pressing her to sit down with a gentle hand and a firm stare, as if she's the sick one. "Darktown smells better than your uncle does," he answers, reaching behind a pile of books and papers to the cache of wine he keeps behind his desk. He withdraws two bottles and returns with one in each hand, sitting on the bench in front of her and holding them out so she can read the labels.

"No Aggregio tonight?" she asks with a grin.

Fenris smirks. "Only the finest for you, mi'lady," he says. He knows it annoys her, and he knows she knows that he knows. At least the teleportation spell didn't leave him grumpy, if he's trying to get a rise out of her. He stands and steps toward the door and she catches his arm.

"I'm just fucking with you," she says, because that never fails to get a rise out of him. Every time she says the word 'fuck,' which is one of her favorite words, he gets this look on his face. It's not quite a wince, not a full double-take, but his mouth always opens just a bit and his eyes widen for a split second before they narrow at her. "You don't need to get the good stuff. I'm happy with whatever. I'd drink the motor oil at the Hanged Man after our little day trip with Garrett."

He turns and leans to show her the wine again, his face hovering close and his eyes fixed on hers. How is she supposed to read the labels with him staring like that? "Ironic that neither of us can read the Tevinter writing on the bottles," he smirks at her and straightens. "If I recall correctly, the one with the vines printed on it is 'fruity and light with a hint of embrium,' and the other one is 'rich and earthy.'"

"Do the Magisters sit around all day talking out their asses about wine and blood magic?" she asks, tipping her head back to watch as he pops both corks out with deft thumbs.

"When they aren't torturing and murdering, yes," he answers, but he has that glint in his eye like one of the bottles is about to hit the wall. She hopes it's the fruity one.

"Hey, I wanted to thank you," she says, changing the subject before he can get to ranting.

As she hoped, he blinks, startled out of whatever tirade he's preparing in his head. "Why did you want to thank me?" he asks, passing her the one with the vines on it. He takes his time sitting down and stares at her again.

"For not going off about the door thing. You remember that time we had the tea party in my room and Sandal tripped coming up the stairs?" she asks him, hurrying to keep his mind away from slavery and the various horrors it entailed.

He nods. "You caught the tray with a thought. And the tea. It was... impressive, if rather frightening."

"I scare you? Really?" Incredulous, she raises her eyebrows and takes a sip of the white wine, grimacing at the sweetness.

Fenris takes a breath and drops his gaze. Marian grits her teeth, preparing for a verbal reaming the likes of which Anders receives every time he's in the room with them. "You heard the Dalish Keeper," he begins, his voice so quiet that she shakes her head and leans forward to hear him. His eyes flick back to hers with that pinning stare as he continues. "You are the most powerful mage in Thedas, the most powerful mage in generations. I have seen magic used for common tasks, or to perform tricks before. An apprentice using magic to clean a mess up, or a magister using it to create the mess. I have never seen anyone who can make every drop of tea on a tray float in midair without trying. You can do things that even a blood mage cannot, can accomplish feats beyond what ordinary mages can even conceive. You have unimaginable power."

She bites her lip as she meets his stare, uncomfortable with his frankness. This conversation has gone in an even worse direction than what she'd tried to steer it from in the first place. "I didn't ask for this," she mutters. "It was bad enough when I was just a regular mage."

"You control your abilities well, but shouldn't you learn more about this... Shaper business?" he asks, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees to stare at her. "You might even have the power to return to your world."

Marian takes another gulp of the sweet wine and winces. "I do have the power," she mumbles, not meeting his eye as she admits it. "I can send us home."

This time he takes a long sip, so long his cheeks flush when he lowers the bottle. "So why don't you return?" he asks, his face still pink as he looks at her. Something flickers behind his eyes and Marian looks away, determined not to overanalyze him.

"It's complicated," she sighs. "I can open the door, so to speak, but once I get through I won't be able to close it again. And then there's the question of the people who's bodies we took. I don't know what happened to them, I don't know if they're in our bodies or what. I can't just snap my fingers and go. At this point, I don't even know if I want to."

"Then you have found reasons to stay?" he asks, leaning forward again. If it were anyone but Fenris, she'd think he sounds almost eager.

She gives him a lopsided grin. "Maybe," she says, leaning forward until they have about an inch of space between their noses. He holds his ground; he's gotten better about physical contact in the year since the Deep Roads, if only with her. He still flinches from everyone else, but that's something else she doesn't want to overanalyze. She and Garrett have been fighting a lot since they moved to Hightown and she's come to depend on Fenris' stoic presence and the calm that he listens to her with, the strange wisdom of his words. Even if he smirks and responds in kind when she flirts with him, he's never made any kind of move and she's not about to push.

"You are getting used to it here," he says, glancing down for a moment before his eyes snap back to hers.

"I guess so," she admits. "But there's a lot of stuff I miss. I dream about it every night, then I wake up and it's all gone. I'm back in the world of chamber-pots and Templars."

"An interesting comparison," he comments, not leaning away as she speaks, though she half-expects it.

"I'll have to remember to tell Anders," she sighs, glancing down at her bottle. She didn't even notice it get to the halfway mark.

Fenris growls and she stares at him. "Why do you remain friends with him?" he sneers, leaning back to chug more wine. "He served his purpose, getting you in and out of the Deep Roads."

"Are you shitting me?" she asks, getting to her feet and leaving her bottle behind. She doesn't get pissed at Fenris often, but tonight's starting to feel like one of those occasions. "He saved my brother. If it weren't for him showing us to the Grey Wardens, Carver would be dead. How can I not stay friends with him?"

He stands as well, looking down his nose over the whopping one inch of height he's got on her. "Why do you defend him? He is an abomination," he crosses his arms and his chin takes a defiant angle. "And I do not trust the way he looks at you."

A disbelieving laugh escapes her. "You're kidding. You're jealous of Anders?"

"I have no idea what you mean. Why would I be jealous of an abomination?" he huffs, but his cheeks color a bit.

Marian steps forward, deliberate in her invasion of his space, until her chest presses against his. "If you like me, Fenris, you should probably _do_ something about it," she says in a low voice. It's that low, threatening voice she uses when she's getting into a fight, but she has no idea what she's fighting about.

Fenris turns and places his bottle of wine on the bench, careful to balance it so that it doesn't slide off the uneven surface when he lets go. A surge of irritation fills her, but before she can say anything he turns back. His hands close around her face and he leans in.

"So this is what you two came here to do?" Garrett's voice, emanating from the doorway, tears them apart before their mouths can touch. Marian spins around to face him, feeling her face heat up. Her brother stands just inside the room, arms folded over his chest and a glare fixed to his face. "Get drunk and screw?"

"Fuck off, Garrett," she snaps. The day has brought her to the end of her patience and this is the last straw.

"No," he says, his voice and eyes steely. "You and I need to have a talk, and I'm not leaving until you come with me."

"Oh, what," she returns, "I'm not allowed to teleport anymore? You can't risk me popping out of sight and disappearing in case the Templars notice? Did it even occur to you that if I can teleport, they can't do shit to catch me?"

Garrett blinks. "They're Templars. They know how to stop you from using magic," he says, but he sounds doubtful and it's clear he didn't consider the advantages before he got to bitching.

"Before you bitch at me for using magic, why don't you take a look at your girlfriend? Do you know that every time she's fighting she summons like six demons? Did you know that I have to banish them because she's not only too weak for it, but she's too fucking reckless to bother? Do you even care, or are you too busy trying to get in her pants to notice how dangerous she is?"

Fenris makes a choking noise behind her and she thinks she hears the word 'witch' but she doesn't turn around, fixing her glare on her brother instead. Garrett looks pale and nauseated at her revelation.

Marian closes the gap between her and her brother, jabbing her finger against his chest so hard the plates of his armor clank. "The next time you wanna bitch at me for using magic, think about how stupid and careless Merrill is. I'm sick of you acting like you're the fucking king of this universe, because you're not. You're just another asshole with a sword in a town full of them, and you're a fucking hypocrite to boot."

She shoulders past him and walks out, too furious to say goodbye to Fenris or thank him for the wine. Marian's too pissed off to even think about the elf until she gets home and lies in her bed with the door barricaded against her brother.

* * *

><p><strong>THE FOLLOWING SECTION IS RATED M.<strong> _** DO NOT READ IF you are under 18, sensitive, easily offended, etc.**_ If you skip this, it will remain T-rated and the information within will be revealed in later chapters. Contains Fade time, Danarius, abuse, angst, slavery and non-graphic rape. And (gag) Danarius x Hadriana.

* * *

><p>It looks kind of like the Gallows, with all the slave statues and the high archways with metal gates, but not. Maybe like the Viscount's Keep, but instead of white stone this place is made of dark gray, almost like slate. Marian stares at the dream construct, wondering if it's memory or exaggeration, the way the rocks seem to absorb and extinguish the dull sunlight and screams echo from within them like a constant vibration.<p>

"Fenris?" she calls, walking up the long stairs, past the twisted statues of slaves that grow more disturbing as she goes further up. By the time she reaches the huge doors, she's surrounded with images of people being tortured in horrible ways: their intestines pulled out, their legs eaten by monsters, their eyes and tongues cut out and their skin flayed off.

The doors bang open in front of her and she storms in as the screaming gets louder, more painful. It sounds like a woman, but she can hear Fenris, too, yelling a string of his Tevinter curses.

She starts running, but the construct isn't very big, just a long hallway to the room where the screams are coming from.

A man's voice yells over the screaming, "Look, Little Wolf. See what you can never have." It sounds strained and triumphant and cruel at once. "You will never have anything. And if you try to have anything, I'll come and take it from you, _just like this_."

That door blasts straight off the hinges, disintegrating as it flies through the air. As soon as she steps inside, Marian wishes she hadn't. It's a scene more horrible than anything from her imagination of what Fenris might have been forced to do. The elf kneels, straining against a metal collar that seems to control his limbs through the lyrium tattoos, his hands wrapped around a brunette woman's wrists, holding her facedown over a table. A gray-haired man with a beard stands behind the woman, raping her while he gouges the skin of her back with a knife, laughing as Fenris begs him to stop, powerless to do anything but hold her down for his master with tears running down his face. That, more than anything else, scares her. She can't imagine the stoic, strong Fenris crying and to see it terrifies her.

She realizes why he fears contact, why he flinches when people touch him. Maybe he was never raped, but if Danarius did this kind of thing- forcing Fenris to help him, to hold women down for him, she understands. This is worse than rape, what Danarius has done. He's turning his slave into his helper, heaping the guilt and shame of his own crimes on Fenris.

"You sick motherfucker," she snarls. A bolt of electricity leaves her hand before she can stop herself, before she even speaks or considers what effect it could have. Danarius goes flying back, slamming into the opposite wall, and his knife clatters across the floor as the collar clatters away from Fenris' neck. Her whole body trembles with sickness and rage; she feels the tremors of her power building over her skin and tangling through her hair as wind whips through the room, sees it reflected in her friend's gaze as he stares at her.

"Marian?" Fenris whispers. His hands remain on the girl's wrists as he stands up. "But you-I- what's happening?"

"It's a dream," she takes a step closer as he gathers the woman's limp and bleeding body into his arms. "Holy shit, Fenris, what... did that really happen to you? Is that what he did?"

"I am so sorry," he says, his voice a hoarse, broken crackle. He stares at the victim he holds, lowering her to the table. The head flops back and she sees dead eyes, the face familiar because Marian sees it in the mirror when she's awake. Her heart pounds and she feels dizzy. She grits her teeth against the fear, knowing that it will attract demons in hordes, that it will give Fenris' nightmare power.

She grabs his arm and pulls him toward the door. "We need to go. Now," she says. "Come on, Fenris. That's not me. That's not the real me, that's just your imagination. That's not me."

"Is it really you?" he asks, staring at her face. His expression looks so broken, so different from that confident, teasing smirk or the battle-ready snarl that she wants to cry. He reaches up a tentative hand but it's covered in blood and he hesitates.

"I'm me," she answers, her voice cracking. She takes his wrist and presses his hand to her cheek, knowing the blood will disappear when he touches her, relieved when it obeys her will. Her eyes don't obey her though, because she's crying and now he is, too. "Come on. We need to go."

He takes her hand and they sprint down the hallway, back through the doors and into the horrifying courtyard. Marian looks back over her shoulder to see Danarius staring as the walls crash down, blockading the corridor behind them. The gray-haired mage smiles and salutes her before he disappears and she stumbles. Fenris holds onto her and they tumble down the stairs, which dissipate into stars. His slick cheek presses against hers until she can't tell whose tears are whose, wrapping her arms around his neck as his hold on her waist tightens, their legs tangling together. They fall, clinging to one another, through the empty vacuum of space, teardrops hanging in the void like tiny liquid sparks.

"That wasn't me. _I'm_ me," she whispers, over and over, into his pointed ear. He shakes against her and she repeats it like a mantra: that wasn't me. She doesn't know who needs to hear it more.

* * *

><p>Marian sits upright in bed, fumbling out of her tangled sheets and running to her balcony in her nightdress, shocked when icy rain pelts her. Something scuffs over her head on the rooftop and she looks up to see Fenris crouching there, his green eyes wide and his pale hair soaked with the rain. Like her, he looks just awakened, wearing a pair of loose pants and nothing else.<p>

"Oh, God," she sobs, covering her mouth with both hands. "Fenris, I'm so sorry. I had no idea."

He jumps down and lands still crouched on the railing. She would admire his grace and balance but his stare is the same broken look he gave her in the Fade. "You would forgive me for that?"

She shakes her head. "It wasn't you. It wasn't me. That sadistic fucker did all of it. He's the one who did it, not you. Not you, Fenris," her voice trails into a whisper and she stands there, staring at him as the rain streaks her face and mixes with the tears.

For a long second he doesn't move and she's afraid he'll jump away, off the balcony to disappear into the night forever. But he climbs down, straightening and walking toward her. For a second she thinks he's going to embrace her again, to cling to her as he did when they fell through space, but he stops just before he can get close enough, staring at her face. "You saved me," he murmurs. "You saved me and you sympathize with me, even knowing what I have done, what I have been a part of."

"You didn't do it," she says, trembling with the memory. It was her, or at least, the her _he_ sees every day. She's never wanted her old face back so much. "He was controlling you. I know you, Fenris. I know you wouldn't do something like that on your own."

His hand lifts and he brushes sopping hair from her eyes. "How did you do it?" he asks, still holding the piece of hair, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger like it was some expensive silk.

"I just wanted to go and tell you I was sorry for running out like that tonight. I thought I would be popping in and popping out, but when I saw your dream, I-" she chokes a bit and feels her knees weaken "-I had to interfere. I couldn't let him do that to you."

"No," whispers Fenris, holding the hair in his hand up in front of her eyes. "How did you change yourself?" For the first time she sees the strand he holds. The water darkens and flattens it, but she can see the faint wave of her familiar too-long hair, the gold illuminated under the lyrium glow of his tattoos.

* * *

><p>Far away, in a spired castle in Tevinter, Danarius awakens. He sits up with a smirk and shoves the slave on his left from the bed, hearing her delicate elven body crash to the floor and the faint squeak of shock and pain that she bites off as she lands and realizes where she it. He wakes the apprentice on his right with a sharp slap on her sleeping cheek, making her jerk upright with a gasp.<p>

"How may I serve you, Master?" she asks him, her false smile and the saccharine sweetness of her voice disembodied in the dark. Her hands rove over his chest and his lap.

"I have a mission for you, Hadriana," he says to her, slapping her obsequious fingers away from his flesh. It is not this shrill harpy he wants now and her touch makes him flaccid. He has seen the face of the woman he wants, the golden hair and flashing eyes, the power she commands- so raw and dangerous. And most important, she and the elf are in love. How quaint. "Go to Kirkwall and find the elf. More importantly, I want you to find out whatever you can about Fenris and his new woman, the mage. Her name is Marian."


	8. It Smells of Burning

**A/N:** Wow, thanks for sticking it out reviewers, especially after the upsetting chapter. Yes, things are jumping forward a bit, and no, nobody's relationships are going to go exactly according to canon because why write fanfic if you can fuck with the story?

_**Warnings:**_ language, blood magic angst, and maternal mushiness (I couldn't resist. HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!) And, of all things, at least one plot is developing. The nerve.

The breakfast scene is drawn directly from my brother and my old roommate, two incredibly in-shape males who eat like fat kids. The coffee drinking is my mother, who makes the poor mofos at Starbucks re-steam anything under 200 degrees.

* * *

><p>Garrett learned to depend on coffee in college, but since he's moved to Hightown and can afford nice stuff, he's learned to love coffee. And the fact that he wakes up every morning to the smell of it wafting up the stairs from the breakfast table. This morning, he wanders downstairs needing his morning Cup of Joe more than usual after an awful night's sleep. He's up two hours early because of the tossing and turning, but on the bright side it means he'll get the eggs and bacon and fresh rolls, instead of fruit and cold pastries.<p>

Three weeks since Marian told him about Merrill's demon summoning and he's had nightmares about it ever since. He's been avoiding the Alienage, too, not making his usual visits to her. He knows he needs to talk to her, but he has no idea what to say or how to say it without upsetting her. His sister won't help, either; she makes it clear on a daily basis that she considers it his job to talk to Merrill.

Today, he decides, he's going to go down there and talk to her. He can't avoid her forever. Coffee and a good breakfast will help, and he opens the door to the breakfast room, halting at the sight.

Marian sits with a plate full of scrambled eggs doused in hot sauce, talking about the Qunari with none other than Fenris, who is enjoying about half the bacon and his own cup of coffee. Garrett wants to punch him more for the bacon theft than anything else. At this point he's just surprised it took so long for Marian and Fenris to hook up. What gets him is the sight of his mother sitting at the table with her palms cupped around a steaming mug, listening to the elf with a fond smile and visions of grandbabies dancing in her eyes.

"You've gotta be kidding me," he says as he steps into the room, shaking his head.

Everyone stares at him.

"You're up early, Garrett," his mother says, smiling and patting the chair beside her. "Come join us. Bodahn just made a fresh pot of coffee."

Marian and Fenris exchange glances and appear to have an entire _How I Met Your Mother_-style telepathic conversation with their eyes. Garrett grits his teeth and then realizes that it's not the fact that the elf is openly sleeping with his sister or the fact that he's eating the bacon. Garrett Hawke is jealous because their little relationship seems better than ever and he doesn't have the nerve to confront Merrill about her blood magic.

With a reluctant shuffle to his feet, Garrett edges over and sits next to his mother. He debates the maturity of it and then snatches the remaining bacon from the platter and starts eating like a starving man.

"It's not the only bacon in Kirkwall," Marian comments, raising a brow at him. She has a forkful of eggs dripping in spicy sauce halfway to her mouth.

"I'm trying to eat it before looking at your plate kills my appetite," he answers with his mouth full. He scoops some eggs and a few sausages onto his plate and resumes eating with gusto. Bodahn sets a mug of coffee next to him and Garrett takes a grateful swallow, sighing in contentment as the liquid scalds his throat.

Fenris finishes a piece of bacon and wrinkles his nose when Marian extends a forkful of her eggs toward him. "Ugh, it smells of burning," he says, waving the eggs away. "We need to start our lessons if we're going to get to the Arishok in time."

"I wish he didn't keep asking for you by name," sighs their mother. "I get so nervous every time I hear you two are going into that camp alone."

Marian shovels her eggs into her mouth and chases it with a swig of sweetened coffee. "Mom, we've gone like five times in ten days. You're just worried we'll convert and decide not to come back," she grins, reaching across the table to squeeze their mother's hand. "You know you don't have anything to worry about when Fenris is there with me."

"I know," Leandra sighs, returning Marian's hand-squeeze with a tired smile. "But he acts like you two are his personal envoys to the Viscount."

Fenris rolls his eyes. "You have it the wrong way around, madam," he says, respectful even while rolling his eyes. "It is the Viscount who regards your daughter and I as his personal envoys to the Arishok."

Garrett grunts around a mouthful of combined oatmeal-eggs-and-sausage. "They'll be fine, Mom. Marian would fry the whole camp before they could lay a hand on her."

"Dude, chew," Marian grimaces. She glances at their mother. "But he's right. I could kill them all before they could wave a sword at me. You have nothing to worry about."

Fenris stands up and brushes a hand over her shoulder. "Come on," he says in a quiet voice. "We have a long day ahead."

"Why can't we ever go to the Wounded Coast for swimming?" she mutters as she stands up, letting her boyfriend lead her from the room. Their knuckles brush each other from time to time, like they're thinking about holding hands but not ready to be that public. Which makes no sense, since they're eating breakfast with the family.

As soon as they're gone, Garrett stares at his mother. "You're okay with this?" he says, jerking his chin at the door.

Leandra takes a delicate sip of her coffee and sets the mug down with a gentle rap before answering. "I would have thought you of all people would be happy to see your sister spending time with an elf," she answers, arching her brows in an expression that reminds him too much of Marian and of his mother back on Earth.

He sighs and turns back to his plate. "You know what I mean. What are your friends gonna say when they find out Marian's messing around with an angry elven fugitive?"

"Since when have either of you cared what a bunch of stuffy old noblewomen say?" laughs his mother. She reaches out to pat his hand, her features softening. "Is this about Merrill?"

Garrett's attention snaps from his plate of food to his mother, the concerned expression in her eyes and the sad smile on her lips. "What did Marian say?" he demands, heart pounding. A former slave is one thing; Leandra spends a lot of time at the Chantry that a charity case like that appeals to her. An exiled blood-mage, though—even his mother can't forgive something like that.

"She just said you haven't been spending as much time together," his mother answers, taking another sip of coffee. She fixes him with that sorrowful stare again and he wishes the floor would swallow him. "What happened, Garrett? You used to go down there every day to see her."

"It's complicated," he mutters, taking another gulp of burning coffee. He scowls at the leftover eggs on Marian's plate and reaches out to snatch them. Not that he'd admit it to her, but he likes the hot sauce and eggs combination, gross as it looks.

"You might try talking to her," Leandra rises in a graceful movement, coffee in hand, and swoops down to kiss his temple, smoothing his hair from his forehead with a warm, gentle hand. "You're still my little boy, you know. You've been protecting everyone—our family and now your friends and half the city of Kirkwall—for so long, I think you forget it. But when I look at you, I still see that sweet little boy who would bring me dandelions and sit on my lap when I read a bedtime story."

"Aw, Mom, you're getting all mushy on me," he says, his cheeks and eyes hot. He gives up on finishing off the table and stands up to hug her. "Seriously, though, it doesn't bother you that Fenris is sleeping over?"

"You should talk to your sister, too, love," Leandra laughs and pats his cheek before she starts gathering dishes in her hands to return to the kitchen. At the door she pauses and looks at him. "And yes, Garrett. If Fenris _were_ sleeping here, it would bother me."

* * *

><p>"Oh, good, it's you," Merrill exclaims when he arrives, grabbing his hand and hauling him into her hovel. Every speech and apology and tactful question that he prepared in his head on the walk from Hightown flies out the window.<p>

Garrett stares at her with his mouth hanging open for a second and he shakes his head. "You're… not mad at me?" he asks her.

"Creators, no," she laughs, still holding his hand as she leads him out of the main room and toward her bedroom. "Come on, Garrett, I want to show you something."

His heart pounds. This is too fast. They haven't even kissed yet, he doesn't know how she feels and he's not sure of his own feelings and now she's dragging him into her bedroom to 'show him something' and he feels cold sweat springing onto his skin, his brain whirling with the panic. His face heats and he struggles to make sense of it, to think up some polite way to refuse her that will leave the door open for another time.

They halt in the doorway and Garrett remembers how to breathe again. Merrill squeezes his fingers and releases them, stepping away to gesture at the massive, ornate mirror in the corner. "Look," she breathes, staring at it with an enraptured expression. "Isn't it beautiful?"

Even if he did know anything about home decorating, he wouldn't call the mirror beautiful. It's gaudy, not like the elegant, streamlined carvings of the Dalish but clunky, with twisting wooden carvings and a few random gems scattered on the sides, and it looks like the edges have been sheared off.

"Merrill," he grins, folding his arms, "You're the only beautiful thing in this house."

She blushes, of course, but she giggles, too. "Oh, my, it's very warm in here," she murmurs. "Perhaps I ought to open a window."

"You need to learn how to take a compliment," he laughs and takes a step toward her. Marian's wrong. Merrill's too sweet and innocent, too gentle and kind to do something as dangerous as summoning demons in the middle of Kirkwall. His sister just wants to run amok and screw around with Fenris, that's why she said all those things.

"I… I don't know what to say," she murmurs, looking up at him as he steps up and takes her hands. "No one has ever praised me. My clan hates me; even the Keeper disapproves. She would have me destroy the Eluvian."

"The Eluvi-what?" he repeats, crinkling his brows at the mirror. "That thing?"

"Yes. It's an artifact of the Elvhen. They used these mirrors to communicate over long distances, even as portals to travel through," she explains, turning to point with one hand. The other remains caught in his grasp, but for once Garrett isn't thinking about her delicate fingers curling against his palm.

"Portals?" he echoes, staring from Merrill's face to the Eluvian. His mind whirls with the implications. "You can open portals with that thing?"

She nods and sighs. "Yes. But I have to repair it first," she says, hanging her head as she faces him again. "I need you to come with me to talk to the Keeper. I need a special tool from the clan and I just… I can't face her alone. Please say you'll come with me?" Her eyes lift to his face, hope glittering in the green depths.

"Well, yeah," he says. "Of course I'll help you talk to her. If we can fix it… shit, I could go home."

The idea hits him like a tidal wave, forceful and confusing, washing over him and leaving him stunned. He's all but given up on the idea of getting back to his world over the past two years. Now he might have a way, if he can help her fix this fugly mirror. But what would it be like to go back? Things would be different, of course, after two years. Who knows what's happened in the time they've been gone? And how can he leave everyone here behind?

"Well, yes, but it might be easier to walk for the time being," Merrill chuckles. "It's not such a long walk, is it? I haven't seen your new house in Hightown really, except at that tea party your sister had. It seems lovely."

Garrett takes a breath. He has to explain things to her if he's going to help her with the mirror. After all, she trusts him, and Merrill's too sweet to betray him or attack him when she gets the news.

"I need to explain something to you, Merrill. I'm not from around here at all. Not from… not from Thedas," he says, every muscle tense as he awaits her reaction.

Her head tilts to one side like a lovely, curious bird. "Are you a spirit, then? Like Anders and Justice?"

"No, not like that," he says. He weaves his fingers through hers and draws her into the next room, helping her to sit at the table. "Marian and I are from another world. Not the Fade. A place with cars and skyscrapers and television and a whole bunch of stuff that you've never even heard of."

She stares at him, her mouth hanging open a bit, her eyes wide. "There are other worlds besides the Fade?" she asks, her voice taking on a note of excitement and wonder.

He nods, relieved. How could he doubt her? She's the kindest, most open person he's ever met. She's never used blood magic to hurt anyone but an enemy, and he's seen how useful it can be. And she understands what he's saying: she's excited, not ready to attack him.

"Yes. We don't have magic, just science. We build things, like cars, they're kind of like chariots but they don't need horses. They move faster than horses because they use combustion engines," he explains. The words come rushing out faster and faster and he grins when he sees her lean closer, enthralled. "We don't have healing spells but we have hospitals where doctors can give you medicines that make you better. And we have really tall buildings and really great music. You know how Marian pissed off half the merchants in Hightown to make that guitar?"

"You mean the strange metal lute?" she asks, frowning in confusion. "Does it actually make music?"

He nods so fast it makes him dizzy. "Oh my God, yeah. And she's pretty good when she practices. We used to have a band in high school, but that was before either of us was very good," he laughs and squeezes her hand. "You have no idea how much I've wanted to tell you all of this."

Merrill smiles at him, that bright, cheerful smile that lights the room like the sun bursting from behind a cloud. Her fingers twist with his on the table. "I'm glad that you told me then. Oh, this is so exciting, Garrett. It might even be the key to the Eluvian," she exclaims.

"If we get this thing working," he says, leaning close across the table, "I wanna show you my world. You'd love it."

She utters a girlish squeal of glee and he can't hold in a faint wince. "Oh, Garrett, I can't wait to see," she cries. "It must be like everything is made of magic, all those things you describe. And with the Eluvian we could travel back and forth and visit one another…" her voice trails off and she blushes, suddenly looking down. "I mean, if you want to visit me."

"Of course I'll want to visit," he says. "I'd miss you."

She blushes and looks at him, her fingers tightening around his. "Do you really mean it?"

Garrett smiles and stands up, moving around the table and pulling her to her feet with their joined hands. She stares up at him, bright green eyes and the delicate swirls of her tattoos. He reaches out and touches the side of her face, his thumb tracing the vines along her cheek as he leans closer.

"Of course I mean it," he whispers, closing his eyes, ready to kiss her.

The door bangs open like a gunshot and he jumps away from Merrill, whirling to see his sister standing there with her hands on her hips and a wicked smirk on her face.

"Busted," she says, stepping inside to let Fenris and Varric in behind her. The three of them have smug expressions and Garrett wonders if they weren't spying before they came in.

"What are you doing here?" he grumbles, still holding onto one of Merrill's hands. His cheeks feel hot and he hates his sister for having the power to embarrass him.

Marian shuts the door behind her and sighs. "We have a problem," she says, folding her arms and leaning against the wall beside Fenris. With their arms crosses and their casual posture, they look like matching statues, except her mouth keeps moving. "It's a divide-and-conquer kind of deal."

"Why, are the Qunari threatening to attack?" he asks. This is what he and everyone else in Kirkwall has been worried about, what his sister and the elf have been trying to prevent. Better her than him, he thinks. She took too many psych classes in college _not_ to have developed some people skills.

She sighs and exchanges glances with Fenris, shaking her head as she meets Garrett's stare again. "Not yet," she says.

"But they will," Fenris mutters.

Marian elbows him and he gives her a half-scowl that sets off alarms in Garrett's head and judging from the smirk the dwarf shoots him, sets the same thoughts in motion in Varric's head: _the broody elf just let her get away with that_. "Right now, they want us to track down this thief, or the guy they think is the thief, some sketchy dwarf named Javaris," she explains.

"You're a mercenary for the Qunari?" Garrett's tone is flat as he drops Merrill's hand to cross his arms over his chest and glare at his sister.

"No. Jesus. This idiot thought he was stealing explosives, but the Qunari left a recipe for poison gas instead," she answers. "The Arishok warned us and told us we might want to find this little jackass before he sets off some crazy Anthrax attack in Lowtown or something."

"He's a dwarf," Varric pipes up. "He's gonna sell it to everyone who's got the coin from the Carta to the Coterie."

"Shit," Garrett mutters. "Do you have any leads?"

Marian nods. "We're gonna grab Anders in Darktown. They'll be the first ones hawking it openly and he knows the merchants down there enough to spot someone with new shit," she says.

"And you need me to warn Aveline," he nods. "In case it's gotten out of the sewers."

She gives him a grin that looks more like a grimace. "Bring a scarf," she says. "From the list of symptoms they described, you'll be lucky if you just puke and shit yourself for a few days." She regards him for a long second and then takes a few steps toward him, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. Confused, he hugs her back, not sure where the sudden show of affection came from until she speaks.

"Fair's fair," she whispers in his ear. "You cockblock me, I cockblock you."

Of course they were listening in. Garrett squeezes her shoulders for a second and releases her, watching as she walks to the door with a smirk that doesn't reach her distracted eyes. Varric and Fenris follow after her.

"Move your asses so this crazy poison shit doesn't get to the city," he says, half-laughing as cold dread settles in his stomach.

The Qunari mess seems worse and worse every day and there's Marian, smack in the middle of everything. And now he's going to spend the rest of the day and night searching for any signs of this gas being used. Garrett glances at Merrill, seeing his own fears and doubts reflected in her eyes, and reaches out to squeeze her hand again.

* * *

><p><strong>I promised a return to humor and I hope I've made good on it. I know, I know, a plot is developing- the horror!<strong>

And yes, the sibling cockblocking competition is ON for at least two more chapters. I am down for suggestions of increasingly embarrassing ways both Marian and Garrett can interfere with the other getting even a little bit of action. The barfing-after-battle joke is just too gross to run with, so I found a new one.


	9. Bitch the Room Out of Oxygen

Thanks for the reviews! Explanations, plot thickenings, etc.

**_Warnings:_ swearing, violence, and naughty Bethany references (just wait for it)**

* * *

><p>The Silent Sisters, true to their name, come out of nowhere while Marian, Garrett, Aveline and Fenris are walking back to Hightown after a night at the Hanged Man. Eight women dart from behind the pillars with knives drawn, expecting an easy mugging. Aveline and the men draw their blades and Marian extends a hand, bolts of lighting arcing from each finger into the nearest attackers.<p>

Another wave of thieves drops from the rooftops to help their fellows. Unlike the scrappy brutes of Lowtown, these women are smart enough to peg her for a mage and target her.

The arrow rips into her side. She screams and grabs it with both hands, her staff clattering to the ground. Without thinking, she yanks it out and screams again as the barbed tip rips back through her muscle with a slosh of blood. Not all of the barbs come out. All she can do is cut the circulation to her blood vessels and try to stay on her feet.

Garrett and Fenris both yell and lunge for the archer that shot her, who falls apart in three pieces. Aveline jumps in front of her, deflecting the next wave of arrows with her shield as the men shear through the archers with their broadswords.

Marian staggers back a few paces, trembling with pain and fury. She doesn't even have to make any of the ridiculous hand gestures that mages seem so fond of: a woman freezes and another combusts and the ground opens to grab a third woman's legs, holding her helpless for the blades that descend on her. Stormclouds gather overhead and lightning arcs down, vicious forks of electricity sending the remaining women flying and charring their corpses. Her knees weaken and she sinks, bleeding, to the ground.

"Marian, are you okay—" Garrett starts toward her and stops short when he sees her face, staring at her slack-jawed.

Her hands fly to touch the mouth and nose and cheeks she's known her whole life, her real face. And she realizes that she forgot the illusion of the medieval-reality face that she's had to concentrate to maintain for weeks. Things have been so quiet that she got cocky, thinking she was getting away with it.

Her brother walks forward and grabs her shoulders, whispering, "What have you done?" Only he could manage to be pissed at her when she's just been shot.

She shakes her head. "I don't know, Garrett, it just happened," she answers, looking around at the remains of the gang members and wincing. "But I'm bleeding like a stuck pig right now."

Garrett stands up and spins around to face their companions. Aveline stares in confusion and horror at the change. Fenris, the only one who knows—until now—is unfazed, regarding her with his typical stoicism. Of course Garrett notices the non-reaction and points a finger at the elf. "You knew about this," he accuses.

Fenris shrugs. "I did," he answers, "But I promised not to tell anyone."

Marian gets to her feet and hisses as the muscles of her side flex around the wound and wet heat spills over her hip. "We need to go inside," she insists. "Then you can bitch until you run the room out of oxygen."

He spins to march into their manor across the courtyard, not looking at her. Marian looks at their companions and presses her hand against her stomach to slow the blood.

"Come on. It'll be a freaking party," she mutters, finding it hard to breathe as seizures of pain radiate from the wound.

"I'd like to hear this explanation as much as your brother does, I imagine," Aveline answers, striding toward the mansion after Garrett.

That leaves just Marian and Fenris standing out in the corpse-littered courtyard. She looks at him and grips the metal railing around the statue in the center of the courtyard in an effort to stay on her feet. "The gig is up, I guess," she says, but her voice sounds too strained even to her. "I guess I couldn't hide it forever."

He points at her side. "You are badly wounded. We should not linger here," he says, walking toward her.

"I'd rather bleed out than go listen to Garrett," she grumbles, not daring to look down at her sticky fingers. She feels lightheaded and the blood flowing over her hand grows steadier by the moment.

"Come along," he says, but rather than following her inside he bends and scoops her up in his arms. Cradled so close to his chest his face encompasses her entire field of vision as concerned eyes stare at her. "Do you need me to get the abomination?"

"It didn't hit any organs," she winces. "I can heal it."

"So why haven't you?"

"Maybe I like being carried," she responds, giving him a weak smile. Truth be told, the combination of blood loss and her little spellcasting rampage have drained her more than she wants to admit.

He pauses as they step into the foyer of her house to kick the door shut behind him. The lack of noise is conspicuous and she cranes her head to see Garrett shooing their mother off to bed. She knows it's for the best to keep hidden for a while longer, but it still irritates her that he feels like it's his decision to make.

"Maker, Hawke, she's bleeding everywhere," Aveline calls, rushing over when she spots them entering the hall. "We need to get her to her room," she adds, unnecessary as Fenris strides up the stairs without hesitation.

Garrett hurries over when they pass him, his face going pale and stricken. "Shit, Marian, I didn't realize how bad it was," he says. "You guys stay with her. I'm getting some towels."

Fenris lowers her to the bed, shifting his hand back to cradle her head. His other hand rises to brush some hair away from her face and she realizes that she's sweating and tries to bat him away.

"Don't touch me, I'm gross," she says, trying to laugh and failing. She must look pathetic, because Fenris sits down beside her and puts his hand over her bloodied one, adding gentle pressure to slow the bleeding. Aveline hovers over his shoulder, armor clattering as she wrings her hands.

"I should go get Anders," the guardswoman announces. "You look far too weak to handle this on your own."

"No," Marian cries, "He can't see me like this. He doesn't know."

"Doesn't know what?" Aveline asks, crossing her arms over her chest. "That you can shape-shift into a pretty blonde? I'm sure he won't object."

"This is how she is supposed to look," Fenris says, turning to stare at the redhead.

Garrett comes in with a stack of towels and a bowl of water and sits on the other side of the bed. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but get her clothes off so we can see the wound," he says to the elf. "And stop give Aveline the Evil Eye."

Fenris blinks and glances at Marian with his mouth open as if he wants to apologize. He turns his head, gossamer strands of hair glinting as they fall across his face. Then he grips the neck of her robe and tears it open in one swift gesture, leaving it open to the navel. At least they have corset-bra-things in this medieval world.

"Somehow I always thought it would be a lot sexier to have a man rip my clothes off," Marian says. No one laughs. She tries to concentrate, to weave the mutilated muscle back together with her mind, but the agony overwhelms her and the magic fizzles in green sparks around her.

"I'm getting Anders," Aveline announces in her Guard Captain voice. "I don't give a shit what you're trying to hide, but you need help and that's what matters." Marian can't see her clanking exit around the men as Fenris dips towels in water and wipes blood away from the puncture and Garrett fumbles thread through a needle.

"Dude, Garrett, if you sew it I'll go septic," she gasps. She wasted her energy on that failed spell and now the first field spell that kept the blood vessels obstructed fails, too. The gush that ensues is dark and she realizes the hepatic vein must have been nicked. "There's still a piece of the arrow in there."

"Fuck, they almost got your liver," he sounds like he did when they had to put their dog down in middle school, his voice cracking eyes crinkling against unshed tears.

"I can get it out," Fenris offers, leaning close enough that she can almost see his features against the graying edges of her vision. "It will be very painful, though."

"Do it," Garrett says, now rummaging through Marian's nightstand. "Where do you keep the painkillers?"

"My writing desk," she chokes, feeling the elf's grip on her hand tighten, pushing harder to slow the welling of blood. She realizes in a distant, floating way that he's keeping the pressure going now because she's not capable. "Second drawer on the left. It's bright red, says E squared on the label."

All she can see is Fenris' face, the brilliance of his large, frightened eyes. He looks almost as terrified as he did when she found him in his nightmare, the night she somehow changed into her normal body.

"I am sorry that I have to do this," he says, leaning closer. He rests his forehead against hers, still pressing on the wound, and she's conscious of the fact that he's not wearing any gloves, that his bare hand is on her bare stomach. His other hand rises to her face, his thumb tracing her cheekbone in a gentle arch. "Look at me. Take a deep breath and just keep your eyes on me."

There's a clatter of movement and she hears her brother take a whiff from one of the bottles. "Elfroot and embrium?" he asks.

She nods and stares into Fenris' eyes as he ordered, losing herself in endless green. "Just do it," she whispers.

A flash of blue light and she can't breathe or think or feel anything but his hand reaching through her. Her consciousness waves in and out as his fingers probe through the wounded tissue and he pulls out the vicious metal spikes lodged there. Each time he goes back in he whispers 'I'm sorry' his mouth now almost against hers, but she's too dazed from the agony of it, the repeated movement as he reaches in and plucks each barb out. She can't feel the warm lips skimming over her cheeks to brush away her tears or understand the babble of words in Arcanum that he murmurs against her ear.

The world seems dark and gray as they bandage the wound; she can't see anything but she can hear her brother's strange, flat British voice and Fenris' answering bass rumble.

"Eleven pieces?" Garrett asks.

"That mage had better get here fast," Fenris growls.

Her brother takes a shaky breath. "Is she still conscious? Can we sit her up long enough to pour this down her throat?"

Marian reaches up a weak hand to grip the elf's hair, fingers digging into the fine strands and sliding away. She feels her brother reaching around her shoulders and lifting her, feels how Fenris cradles her head with a gentle hand, feels the cool glass of the potion bottle pressing against her lips.

"Holy Maker, what happened?" she hears Anders' distant voice as she opens her mouth and gulps back the potion. The effect is immediate; the pain recedes to something throbbing and terrible, but now she can surrender to unconsciousness.

* * *

><p>Marian insists that Fenris stays while she explains her appearance to her mother and brother. He hasn't left her bedside in the three days since she woke up, or for the two days she was barely conscious, except the night he and Garrett went out to massacre the remaining Sisters. Leandra insists that, at the very least, he needs to take a proper bath and have a good night's sleep instead of dozing off on the floor with his back against the bedframe. Garrett, ever the diplomat, points out that he's tired of lending his clothes and that the elf is starting to smell.<p>

But at her pleading look Fenris assumes an almost protective position, sitting on the bed next to her knees and crossing his arms. He does look kind of ridiculous in one of Garrett's plain white shirts, which is too large for his slimmer elven frame, and a pair of her brother's pants that drag on the floor.

Garrett sighs and leans against her desk as her mother joins them on the bed, perching on the other side and taking Marian's hand in both of hers.

"I'm just glad you're alive," says Leandra, leaning down to kiss her forehead. "I think you look lovely, dear."

"Thanks, Mom," she says, squeezing her mother's fingers.

Garrett sighs again. "You still haven't told us what the deal with this is," he waves a hand at her face and hair.

"Look, I don't know exactly what happened. I've been working on my lucid dreaming and all, trying to get a better handle on this Shaper stuff," she begins. "And I accidentally went into one of Fenris' dreams and when I woke up, I looked like myself. I don't know what happened or why it happened."

"You have a theory, though," her brother says.

She rolls her eyes. He knows her too well. "I made a conscious choice to be myself—my _real_ self—in the Fade and it affected reality," she answers. "I figured out how to make an illusion of my face here, but that's all it is. I have to remember to keep it up all day, and I've been doing it for almost two months. That's why I wake up so early, so no one sees me while I'm asleep."

"Jesus, Marian, for a one-forty IQ you sure are dumb sometimes," Garrett grumbles. "Why didn't you say something? Why don't you go learn from Marethari? She seems to know more about Shapers than anyone else."

Marian sighs. "I dunno, Garrett. It's all just…" she trails off without finishing, aware of how lame any she can give will sound.

"I agree with your brother," Fenris adds, turning to look at her with his serious stare. Even though her mother is right there, he grasps her other hand and weaves his fingers with hers. "If you want, I will accompany you to the Dalish camp while you study. It would be… interesting to learn more of the people."

Marian knows he's lying and that he doesn't enjoy 'traipsing around in the dirt' as he so eloquently put it, and that makes her smile impossible to hide. "Only if you want to," she says, her thumb stroking over his calloused knuckles.

"I believe I have a luncheon to get ready for," Leandra announces, standing up with a final squeeze for Marian's hand and a wink. She sweeps out the door and pulls Garrett along with her in an epic show of excellent parenting.

"What about the Arishok?" she asks. "He'll be kind of pissed if I go running off to learn magic tricks in the mountains."

"It is not as if we cannot come back to Kirkwall if your help is needed," he answers, giving her one of his faint, gentle smiles. Her heart does this light fluttery thing as his hand cups her cheek and he says, "But it is more important that you stay alive."

"You would really go for a ridiculously long camping trip with me?" she grins at him lifts her free hand to cover his fingers on her cheek while the other hand remains tangled with his.

He smirks at her and leans down to rest his forehead against hers, much like when he pulled the arrow bits out of her. "Have I not already proven that I would follow you anywhere?" he murmurs.

"Easy, killer," she says, but her voice doesn't have that raucous teasing quality she was shooting for. Just gentle, soft, sweet. "I might get to liking you too much."

"Good," he whispers, tilting his head forward and pressing a small kiss to the side of her mouth. He pulls back an inch or two, staring at her as if he's surprised that he just did that, and the hand on her cheek slides back into her hair, drawing her face back to his. Their lips brush together and the door bangs open behind them.

"Oh, Maker…Garrett said I could just come in," Anders sighs from the doorway.

Marian hears her brother laughing in the hallway as Fenris sits up. Her lips tingle where his just barely touched them and she lifts a hand to her mouth, pleased to see the elf doing the same thing. "Sorry, Anders," she says, looking at the frowning apostate. She raises her voice to make sure Garrett can hear her add, "My brother's an asshat."

"Maker, you reek," Anders wrinkles his nose as he walks past Fenris. He scowls at the elf, "If you are going to hang around here all day, at least bathe and put some clean clothes on."

Fenris glares at the mage but Marian squeezes his hand. "He's right. You do smell kind of ripe," she says, giving him a pleading look as he stares at her. "It's okay. I'm not going anywhere."

"I will return," he says, lifting her knuckles to his lips. He and Anders exchange a final set of dirty looks and Fenris leaves.

Marian looks at the mage. "Sorry. He's been prickly since the whole arrow-shooting thing," she says, pushing the blankets back and unbuttoning the bottom of her shirt so he can check the wound.

Anders helps her to sit up and starts unwinding the bandages around her abdomen. "I know. He was a right prig when we cleaned out those Sisters," he answers, giving her an odd sidelong look as he lowers her down and peers at the wound. "He razed through them worse than Garrett did. Sliced his arm up, too, and wouldn't let me heal him, either."

"Maybe he'll chill out when we go to the Dalish camp, you know, learn how to be one with nature and shit?" she asks, tilting her head back so she can't see as he wipes numbing salve over the wound and starts probing at it.

"You're kidding me," Anders says, lifting his head to frown at her. "You're going to join the Dalish together? Are you sure that's wise?"

Marian laughs and then groans. Her friend has done a wonderful job healing her, but the damage is severe, worsened by her reckless reaction. It still hurts to laugh or move, and she can't get further than the chamber pot and she needed help with that for the first few days.

"No, we're not joining the Dalish. I'm not that much of a hippie," she answers, taking deep breaths to ease the pain. "But I need to learn to control my Shaper powers, and Marethari is the only person who seems to know anything about it."

Anders closes his eyes for a moment and she feels magic weaving through the knitting muscles, strengthening and securing them. She grasps his other hand in both of hers and channels her own strength into him, which isn't a whole hell of a lot at this point. But using her powers helps make her feel better, and it's good to exercise even a little bit. He squeezes her hand as he cuts off the link and finishes his spell.

"Be careful, Marian," he says, still holding onto her hand as he helps her sit up against the headboard, propped with pillows. "You know if you ever need anything, I'll be there for you."

She smiles at him. "You're the best, Anders. Seriously, I don't know what I'd do without you," she answers. Her gentle smile turns wicked. "So, have you managed to visit Bethany lately?"

He blinks, but he doesn't smirk back at her. "I don't think I'm her type," he answers. "Isabela snuck her a bottle of brandy, you know, and your sister's a chattier drunk than your uncle."

Marian's eyes widen. "What happened?" she asks, brain racing. Did Isabela seduce her little sister? Is Bethany a lesbian? How did she not figure this out sooner? She's caught her little sister making eyes at more than one strapping soldier-boy around Lowtown or Hightown, but she's never seen her actually talk to one or go out with a boy.

Anders looks a bit sick. "It seems she couldn't be happier, surrounded by _handsome_ Templars," he announces, brows drawing together. "She manages to spend an awful lot of time around the Knight Captain, too. That's the reason she got herself caught."

"Shit," Marian whispers, staring at him in shock and confusion. "Does Garrett know?"

He shakes his head. "No. I'm not even supposed to tell you, you know," he answers. "I only found out because Isabela was drunk when I led her back through the tunnels."

"Well, I really appreciate you telling me," she says, giving his hand another squeeze. "Shit. I don't even know what to think about that."

* * *

><p><strong>Next up: <strong>Garrett and Merrill try to fix the Eluvian and deal with a pissed-off Arishok.


	10. Stop Talking About My Sister

At last we have some romance! This chapter and the next will be kind of like lovey-dovey interludes, but there's still some serious plot going on in spite of the fluffiness.

**_Warnings:_ fluff, language, mild violence, pillow talk and sensuality**

* * *

><p>Garrett drives his sword into the Varterral's weird mantis-like head from where he's perched on its neck, twisting the blade with both hands. It makes a horrible shrieking noise and collapses. He rolls off before the massive insectoid body can crush him.<p>

Merrill races across the cave to the dead elf boy who ran straight into the beast's jaws only a few minutes before, tears already flowing down her cheeks. Varric and Aveline exchange glances and Garrett turns away from them to kneel with Merrill, putting an arm around her slight shoulders.

"Oh, Pol," she whispers, "Why would you do this? What were you thinking?"

"It's okay, Merrill," he says, leaning over to kiss her temple. "He shouldn't have run off like that."

She stares at him, her face streaked with dirt and tears and blood. "I don't understand why he would do such a thing," she whimpers, leaning against his chest. "Why would he run away from me?"

He shakes his head, enfolding her in his arms and stroking her hair. "We'll go talk to the Keeper. Maybe she has some answers for us," he says. He helps her up and they walk out of the cave and back to the camp in silence, except for Varric, who jangles with the stash of treasures he looted from the Varterral.

Garrett studies Merrill's profile as they walk along, the slope of her cheeks and the trailing tears that splash along them, the downturned lips and downcast eyes. He feels like his heart is breaking on her behalf, feels as sick and frightened as he did when Marian got shot, or when Bethany got taken by the Templars.

He takes her hand as they approach Marethari and weaves his fingers through hers to let her know she has his support. They converse half in Elvish for a bit, and he can see Merrill's distress, even panic. At last the Keeper turns to him and passes him the knife.

"I give the arulin'holm to you, Hawke, and ask that you do not give it to Merrill for all our sakes," she says.

Garrett blinks, confused, and hands the artifact to Merrill without a second thought. A look of sorrow crosses Marethari's wizened face before she turns away. He looks from the Keeper's retreating back to the elf girl beside him to Aveline and Varric, both shaking their heads behind him. All around the camp the elves stir and murmur and stare at their group.

"We should go," he says, noticing the narrowed eyes and wary stances. Taking Merrill's hand again, he marches toward the edge of the camp.

"Garrett, wait," calls a familiar female voice. He hesitates and turns to see Marian running toward them from behind one of the land-ships. Instead of her usual mage-robes she wears a draping tunic-dress that leaves her legs and shoulders bare, and her long hair is braided away from her eyes. She stops in front of him, glancing between him and Merrill.

"Where's Fenris?" he asks, trying not to sneer. He's exhausted and drained from the horrifying quest through the cave and he's worried about Merrill, whose fingers are still shaking in his grasp. If Marian had come with them, maybe she could have stopped that Pol guy from running off.

"Out hunting," she shrugs and then grins. "He's _awful_ at it."

Garrett shakes his head. "I'm not surprised. What did you want to tell me?" he asks. Even though he planned to visit her after taking care of the Varterral, the aftermath is too much and he's impatient to leave.

"Can we talk in private for a minute?" she asks, eyes flicking to Merrill.

He sighs. "Whatever you have to say, just say it," he snaps. Even Marian can't have the nerve to accuse Merrill of being a danger to her face.

Her jaw tightens and her lips compress. "Fine. The Keeper warned everyone about what Merrill's been doing," she says, gaze flicking to the elf. "And I'm sorry, Merrill, but that's just fucked up. You've put your entire clan in danger because you're summoning demons, and people have died for it already." Marian's eyes darken to stormy gray.

"Those men died because of the Varterral—" Merrill protests.

"You know that the Varterral wouldn't have attacked them if you hadn't summoned a demon and locked it on the mountaintop," Marian interrupts, turning to face the elf and narrowing her eyes. Wind whistles around her as she folds her arms and Garrett feels the clench in his gut of her magic crackling. "I heard that Pol ran straight into its lair because everyone's so terrified of you. They would rather be eaten by a fucking bug monster than risk that you'll summon a demon to eat them or worse, possess them."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Merrill says, her voice clipped with anger. She releases Garrett's hand and steps toward Marian with flashing eyes. "The Keeper has been telling the tribe that I'm worse than the Blight, but I take precautions. I know how to defend myself from demons and I would never endanger anyone else."

"That's bullshit," Marian answers. "You didn't take enough precautions because if you had, there wouldn't be a fucking demon at the top of the mountain!"

Garrett steps between them and shoves his sister away from Merrill. "That's enough," he snaps, glaring at her. "I trust Merrill. She knows what she's doing. What happened to those men was awful, but it's not her fault. If they weren't so ignorant and superstitious, maybe they wouldn't have run into a giant praying mantis nest."

Marian staggers back at the force of his push. Her expression hardens as she shakes her head. "You're both fucking idiots," she says, and then she spins and returns to camp. Garrett stares at her retreating back for a moment before pulling Merrill away from the camp and down the path back to Kirkwall.

Varric hesitates beside Aveline. "I think I'm gonna stick around for a few more minutes and go talk to Marian," he says, his voice slow and cautious.

"Whatever, Varric," Garrett answers. He doesn't even look back at the dwarf as he and Merrill stalk down the path. How could Marian be such a bitch? What kind of ridiculous lies are she and the Keeper spreading?

"I'll stay with you, Varric and walk you back. Better not to be alone on the roads, right?" Aveline adds quietly. "But we shouldn't stay more than an hour or two."

Garrett ignores them, tangling his fingers with Merrill's and the two of them rush along the path, away from the Dalish camp and the hate-filled stares and betrayals. He can't believe Aveline and Varric would ditch out like that, especially after hearing all the shit Marian just said.

They walk in silence again and he bites his tongue, unable to think of anything to say. He's furious at his sister for what she's said, but it still nags at him. What if they aren't lying or exaggerating? Has Merrill really locked a demon on top of Sundermount, and if she has, could that be the reason for the Varterral's hostile behavior and the corpses rising in the graveyard? He doesn't know how to ask her. He's not even sure he wants to know the truth.

"I'm so sorry, Garrett," Merrill whispers as they approach the city. She squeezes his hand and gives him a mournful stare. "I never meant for anyone to be hurt. It's important that I fix the Eluvian, not just for you, but for the elves. It's a piece of Dalish history and if I can bring even a small piece of our past back to life, it will be worth any price."

He blinks, surprised at the implication her words bring. "Merrill, I trust you and I trust your judgment, but I have to ask if what Marian said was true. Did you really leave a demon in a statue on top of the mountain?" he says, halting as they step through the gates and holding both of her hands. "It's not like I'll hate you if you say yes. But that is dangerous, especially if you're not there to help keep it under control."

"It's trapped. I put all sorts of wards and spells on it so that it can't escape," she answers, defensive. Her face falls a second later. "But what if it has been hurting people? What if Marian's right about me? Am I a monster, Garrett?"

"No," he says, folding her in his arms. "You're not a monster at all."

She shivers against his chest and he realizes she's crying all over the plate armor. He strokes her hair and her soggy cheek.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up," he says, tilting her chin up with light fingers. He presses a soft kiss to her lips and then to her forehead and smiles at her. "You're going to rust my armor if you keep crying on it."

"Oh, no, I'm sorry, Garrett," she cries, pulling the kerchief at her neck off to mop at his chestplate. "I didn't mean to harm your armor."

He laughs and catches her hands in his. "It's a joke," he says, giving her a peck on the lips again.

Garrett likes kissing her, the tiny little surprise kisses they exchange from time to time. They've had one real, heavy kiss, spurred in part by too many drinks at the Hanged Man, and when she asked him with flushed cheeks if he wanted to come in to her house it took all his strength to tell her he didn't want her to regret a drunken decision in the morning. Since then they have danced around the idea of spending the night together without managing to say anything in one direction or another.

It's hard, though. Every time he looks at her he can't help wondering what she looks like without her clothes on, what her skin would feel like under his hands, what kind of noises she might make—and he ends up needing a cold bath.

"Come on," he murmurs, his face close to hers. "I'll walk you home and when you've had a nice bath, we can go back to my house for dinner. My mother's been dying to have more people around since Marian left."

She gives him a weak smile as he draws her along with him toward the Alienage. When they reach her door she hesitates, looking up at him with nervous eyes. "Garrett, I—I think I'd like to be alone for a few minutes," she whispers. Her cheeks flush and she waves her hands as she hurries to add, "It's not you! It's just that… I just need a few minutes to bathe and to think about what happened. I'll come by after dinner, I promise."

Garrett takes a breath and nods, trying not to let it offend him. She's had a much worse day than he has, being attacked from every possible angle. Of course she needs time to absorb the events and she probably wants to mourn in private.

"I'll see you later, then," he says, leaning down to kiss her again. This time he lingers, arms circling her waist as she reaches up to hang onto his neck. Her lips are soft and pliable and they open for him just for a second, letting him taste her mouth before she pulls back, flushing. He glances around and notices that the other inhabitants of the Alienage are staring at them with expressions that range from sneers to giggles.

"Tonight," Merrill whispers, stroking his cheek with her hand, and then she darts inside.

He stares at her door for a second, dazed from their kiss. Then he turns, grinning, and makes his way back to Hightown. The way she said 'tonight' makes him shiver. It sounds like a promise and he feels his heart hammer and his stomach coil in anticipation.

* * *

><p>Merrill rests her cheek against his chest and Garrett wraps his arm around her, pulling her bare skin closer to his. He's still tingling all over with aftershocks of pleasure, his breath uneven and his face flushed.<p>

"You should stay here," he says, running an absent hand over her spine and enjoying the shiver it evokes. "There's enough space for you and my mom wouldn't mind. She likes you. She's always asking me to invite you over for dinner or breakfast or whatever."

She gives him a dubious look. "But Marian doesn't like me much," she says, shifting to look at his face. Her legs tangle with his and he takes a sharp breath. Green eyes widen in fear. "Oh no, did I hurt you?"

Garrett laughs. "Exactly the opposite," he answers, drawing her down for a kiss. "And who cares what Marian thinks? She's off living on the mountainside right now for who knows how long."

Merrill's face turns sad as she pulls back, folding her arms on his chest and peering down at him. "I wish… I wish the Keeper had been as fond of me as she is of Marian," she says, blinking glassy tears back. "We always argued and talked circles around each other, and now your sister seems to be exactly the perfect pupil that she wanted me to be. I feel like a failure."

He shakes his head, hugging her and kissing the side of her face. "You're not a failure, Merrill. You're trying to fix the Eluvian. If no one understands how much work you're doing on their behalf, that's their problem, not yours," he draws back, cupping her cheek to stare at her. "You're the most beautiful, strongest woman I've ever met. I really mean it. You don't need to worry about what anyone else thinks, least of all my crazy sister."

"But she's so talented and powerful—" Merrill begins, but he silences her with another long, tender kiss. Both of them are breathing hard and clinging to each other as they pull back.

"She's just trying to act like she isn't dangerous, which is a lie. She doesn't have control over her superpowers and she thinks she knows better than everyone else because she graduated college," he answers. "Don't listen to her. She doesn't know much about magic and she doesn't know anything about blood magic. Once we fix the Eluvian, she'll have to admit she was wrong."

Merrill gives him a dubious look, but she nods slowly. "I suppose," she whispers, trailing her fingers over his chest. "I just wish she didn't get so angry at me."

"Stop talking about my sister," he laughs, his hand catching her hip and pulling her close. She makes a soft mewing noise, like a kitten, and he rolls her to her back, kissing her with more passion and intent than before.

* * *

><p><strong>Next up:<strong> Fenris and Marian fluff. Yes, it's going to go differently than the canon, but there will still be some angst and obstacles, of course. Just... different obstacles. You'll see.


	11. Chunks of Ice Meat

Just so all you lovely review-bunnies know, I get squealy and fangirl out for your reviews. :-) Just for you, I present 'A Bitter Pill' AU-style. Yes, I do know exactly what's going to happen with everyone now. Marian is going to track much more off-canon than Garrett, who, ironically, will be pushed more into canon by Marian's veering away... don't ask. It'll make sense two chapters from now.

**_Warnings_:** language, sensuality, voyeuristic elves (not really, but it sounds funny), VIOLENCE and sexiness and Shakespearean sonnets for pillow-talk.

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><p>Marian yelps as Fenris sweeps his staff around her feet, knocking her flat with a swift jolt. Her hip and elbow hit the ground and she rolls to her back as he taught her to absorb the worst of the impact. She lies in the damp grass for a moment, staring up at the sky until he steps over her, staring down with his staff over his shoulder.<p>

"I'm just gonna shoot lightning at you next time," she announces, shielding the sun from her eyes with both hands.

He folds his arms and tilts his head to one side, smirking at her. "You say that every time you lose," he answers, using the end of the staff to poke her in the stomach. "I am immune to this idle threat."

"Cocky bastard," Marian sighs. When he pokes her she giggles and grabs at the staff but he snatches it out of her grasp and reaches a hand down instead.

"We are not done yet," he says, hauling her to her feet. "Five more minutes."

She groans and gives him her most pitiful look. "You just like beating me up," she complains, bending to scoop her staff back up. He steps closer, readying his hand to slap her on the ass and she whirls, bringing the staff across her body between them. It's become a game—the first time he did it she yelped and he told her to stop him if she had a problem with it.

Fenris bends backward, white hair blowing around his ears as the end of her staff swishes by his temple, snapping his staff up to block her follow-through. The crack resonates through her arms but she keeps a firm hold, grinning as he smirks at her. He runs her through the basics, the sweep and flick and snap, then through a series of more complicated moves, forcing her to jump over his staff as he attempts to knock her off her feet again and again.

"Learn from your mistakes," he says in his battle-calm voice, flipping the staff up as she jumps over it so she has to duck or get smacked in the face. She slams her staff toward his shin, making him dance back a step. He smirks again as she rolls out of the way of his next strike and comes up on her feet. "Good."

He's a good teacher because he's steady, patient, and pushes her beyond her perceived limits in order to prove that she's better than she thinks she it. But it's hard to be convinced that she's any good when he hasn't even broken a sweat.

Marian pants by the time they finish, her shirt and pants soaked through with sweat. Her first instinct is to flop back into the grass but Fenris steps up and takes her hands, lifting her arms over her head and stretching out her tired muscles.

"Don't forget to stretch," he murmurs, tipping his head to the side to kiss her while he holds her hands helpless above her head. She arches to press her chest against his, opening her mouth when his tongue brushes against her lips. He pulls back and chuckles at her small moan of disappointment.

"_Festis bei umo canavarum_," she mutters, repeating one of his favorite phrases. He steps back, releasing her hands, and with a sigh she imitates him as he bends to touch his toes. "These lessons would be a lot more fun if you didn't wear a shirt."

"I could say the same to you," he answers, straightening and smirking at her. "But we would both be too distracted."

"It would be good practice," she protests, laughing when he grabs her waist and tosses her over his shoulder. "What if a giant spider rips your armor off? I'll get eaten while I stand there staring at your muscles."

"You have seen me without a shirt many times," Fenris comments, striding toward the creek where the clan bathes. "And each time you stare as if you had never seen a naked man before."

"Can't you take a compliment?" she asks. They burst through trees and she hears the rush of nearby water. She bends forward and grips the fabric of his shirt in both hands. "Don't. Don't do it. I swear to God, Fenris, don't." Her grasp of the shirt doesn't help when he flips her over into his arms, keeping her cradled like a baby with her feet off the ground. All it does it pull his shirt off.

"Take your boots off if you don't want to get them wet," he warns, balancing her in one hand and tugging the boots from her feet. She still can't believe how strong he is, even though he lifts her almost every day. Sometimes she wonders if scooping her up is his version of lifting weights and whether he considers her a barbell or a hand weight.

Marian changes her tactics and wraps both arms around his neck, pressing her lips to his earlobe. "Please?" she murmurs, nipping the tender flesh and grinning as he hisses and his hands clench around her.

"You smell. I prefer you clean," he growls, but he lowers her to her feet and kisses her again, hard. His fingers dig into her hips, jerking them against his, and then he fumbles her shirt over her head, unfastening his mouth just long enough to let the fabric pass by before he kisses her again.

They are too wrapped up in each other, kissing and tearing at one another's clothes, to hear Fenarel approach. They do hear when he clears his throat for attention and Marian ducks, wrapping her arms around her chest and flushing as she pulls her shirt back on.

"What?" Fenris snaps, glaring at the other elf as he refastens his pants.

Not for the first time, Marian wishes that the Dalish had a more urban outlook on nudity and such. Then again, they live in traveling wagon camps, so they're used to changing and bathing together and having sex in close proximity. She and Fenris, however, are not. They keep trying to sneak off, but every time they get interrupted by elves who don't seem to care that they've walked in on a private moment. Like now.

Fenarel doesn't flinch, looking from one to the other with a steady if contemptuous gaze. "We have spotted a group of men in Tevinter armor only a few miles from our camp," he announces, his lip curling. "They are guarding a cave at the base of the mountain."

Her blood runs cold as Fenris stares at her, trembling with fury so strong she can feel it emanating in waves. Marian snaps to action, pulling her boots on and walking down the path. The elf men flank her as they enter the camp.

"Alert the Hunters that they need to double patrols in case the slavers attack and notify the Keeper to make extra protections and keep people close," she says. A strong hand grips her arm and she glances over to see Fenris, his eyes burning into hers. "We're going to go kill those motherfuckers."

"Thank you, Hawke," Fenarel jerks his chin down in a sharp nod. It is the first time he's used her name, affording her the respect he would any First, even though she can never be a Keeper because she's human. Or perhaps he respects her immediate action and assumption of responsibility, the fact that she wants the Dalish to protect themselves rather than to help her. "Anderan atishan," he says as he turns away and hurries to Marethari.

She and Fenris get ready in record time. Marian's robes stick to her skin with the sweat from their practice, but her staff hums in her hands, that much deadlier for the training in physical combat.

"How close can you get us?" Fenris asks, halting her with a hand on her arm as they exit the tent. "They will attack us the moment we leave the Hunters' range."

Marian nods as the implication sinks in. If they are attacked too close to the camp, the Dalish will get involved out of a sense of honor and a desire to keep the camp safe. Either way, it will mean casualties for them that the clan can't afford. "But you might barf again," she points out. "We'd be just popping into enemy territory and you'd start puking, and while that might put them off for a minute, you'd be vulnerable."

"We cannot involve them," his voice has a firm edge. He lifts his hand from her arm to her cheek, stepping closer. "I trust you."

"I'll do what I can," she murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him before they go. The world tightens for a moment and snaps back around them. Startled slavers yell at their sudden appearance as Fenris jerks away from her to spit up bile and whip his sword off his back.

Marian lets the burning buildup of magic snap out in a shockwave, knocking the nearest men to the ground, where Fenris' sword sweeps through them. She steps back, fists crackling at her sides as lightning crashes down from every angle, scattering the men who still stand and frying a few on the spot.

The lyrium of Fenris' tattoos flares to life and he turns into a silver blue blur, sweeping across the battlefield in deadly blade arcs. She sees a group of archers take aim for him and lets the energy in her palms go, throwing her arms forward and letting bolts of electricity shear through them. A few men come running toward her, brandishing their swords, and as they freeze the heavy claymore slashes through them, shattering in chunks of ice-meat.

Like that, the battle is over. Only one man groans and attempts to crawl away and both of their heads snap toward him. The dying man's armor has melted against his back from her lightning and he propels himself on just his arms, legs dragging useless through the dirt. An instant later Fenris crouches over him, hand digging in the man's hair and slamming his face into the ground.

"Please don't kill me," the man cries. "Hadriana sent us!"

Marian flinches as Fenris yanks the wounded man's head back and slams his face down again. She remembers how gentle his hands are in her hair when he weaves intricate braids at night by the fire, even the passionate ferocity of his grip when he pushes her against a tree or rock and kisses her.

"Where is Danarius?" he demands.

"I—I don't know! Hadriana, she's in the Holding Caves," gasps the prisoner. "I'll show you the way. Please don't kill me." He sniffles and chokes as Fenris smacks his face on the ground again.

"He'll die anyway," she says.

Fenris narrows his green eyes, attention snapping to her. "What do you mean?" he growls.

"His back's broken and the burns will kill him before he can crawl to anyone who can heal him," she answers, gritting her teeth as she says it. A surge of hate fills her, fury for what these bastards have turned him into, for the savagery and violence they evoke in him. She knows a protective, dangerous man with wild passion and Zen calm, a proud _free_ man. Not this animal that they've unleashed, not this slave to his memories and their abuse.

Their eyes meet across the bodies of the efficiently killed men.

"Let him crawl," she says, her voice quiet and deadly, a calm to match his.

Fenris crosses the camp with rapid strides, gripping her shoulders with bloodstained hands and hugging her against his chest. "I am sorry," he whispers against her hair.

She lifts her head from the crook of his neck and stares in his eyes. "No," she answers, brushing her knuckles against his cheek, "They deserve to die. They _need_ to die."

* * *

><p>Marian shuts her eyes against the blue glow and the wet squelch as Fenris jams his hand through Hadriana's chest. She's glad to see the other mage die, but the noise reminds her of the night she was shot almost a year prior.<p>

He turns toward her, eyes still raw with emotion, waving his hand to flick the blood away. Neither of them speaks for a long moment, just staring at each other as the corpses of slavers cool around them. Her knees feel weak and then his arms circle her and he hugs her so hard she can't breathe. She feels him trembling and doesn't know what to say to him. There's nothing to be done except to be there, to hold him just as tightly. They stand like that for several minutes, embracing one another with silent numb faces

"We need to leave this place," he says, his lips against her temple.

She nods and closes her eyes. It should disturb her that the teleportation spell becomes easier with each casting, but that's a worry for another day. Her bedroom materializes around her and she has the presence of mind to kick the door shut while he reels and winces at the headache he has. The spell doesn't make him as sick anymore, which she appreciates as he advances toward her.

Fenris shoves her against it as soon as it closes, his mouth fierce, his hands pulling their clothes and armor off before she can push the lock. By the time they lie spent and tangled on the bed the sky outside her window has darkened. She lies on top of Fenris tracing the lyrium lines on his shoulder as he strokes the sweaty knots out of her hair.

"I guess we should have thought of this sooner," she murmurs, her lips against his collarbone.

He shivers and the hand in her hair tightens for a moment. "What was that poem you told me during the equinox festival?" he asks her, shifting his head on the pillow to meet her eyes. "The one your Shakespeare poet wrote?"

She grins at him. "I didn't think you'd remember that," she says, lacing her fingers together over his chest and resting her chin on them. A bloom of warmth fills her chest that he does remember that night, they way they wandered away into the woods until they found a clearing and lay there looking at the stars and drinking Dalish spirits until everything looked silver from the sky to his hair to the faint glow of his tattoos when he leaned toward her.

"It was the night of our first kiss," he answers, frowning. Marian bites back a chuckle; he looks offended. "How would I not remember it?"

"Alright, then," she smiles at him and leans up to kiss the corner of his mouth. "But this time, wait until I'm done before you start kissing me."

"Very well," he replies, his face serious even though his eyes have that new softness to them, the tenderness of feelings that he's acquired since she-doesn't-know-when. At some point in the years they've known each other his gaze has become gentle and it thrills her to know that side of him is reserved for her.

This time, when she recites the words, she meets that gaze instead of closing her eyes, her voice a soft bedroom murmur instead of a cry of praise to the sky.

"_For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any,_

_Who for thy self art so unprovident._

_Grant, if thou wilt, thou art beloved of many,_

_But that thou none lov'st is most evident:_

_For thou art so possessed with murderous hate,_

_That 'gainst thy self thou stick'st not to conspire,_

_Seeking that beauteous roof to ruinate_

_Which to repair should be thy chief desire._

_O! change thy thought, that I may change my mind:_

_Shall hate be fairer lodged than gentle love?_

_Be, as thy presence is, gracious and kind,_

_Or to thyself at least kind-hearted prove:_

_Make thee another self for love of me,_

_That beauty still may live in thine or thee._"

Fenris trails his fingers down to her cheek and pulls her close. He opens his mouth to speak and she feels him trembling against her. Her heart pounds in answer, anticipating, _hoping_. Before he can speak, though, someone knocks at the door.

Marian lifts her head from his chest and he tugs her back down with a growl, cradling her against him and pushing her sweaty hair away from her cheeks.

"Don't answer it," he murmurs, smoothing her hair and pressing a tender kiss to her swollen lips. "It is doubtless your fool brother come to yell at us for making love and I will not have him ostracize or shame you for this."

She brushes his bangs away from his face with one hand and kisses his forehead. "He might want to yell at me for not saying hello before we got down to business," she smirks, drawing the sheet over herself even though he makes her struggle for every inch of fabric.

The knocking continues, insistent, driving to a panicked crescendo. Then Garrett's voice calls through the door, "Marian, get your clothes on, _now_. Mom's gone missing."

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry!<strong> But we all knew it was coming. Also sorry that I let Leandra be so darn amazing and lovable.

For anyone who wants to know, that was Shakespeare's tenth Sonnet (Sonnet X), which I think fits Fenris the best of all the sonnets (but also because I know the first twenty better than the rest, haha). It even references how bad he is at taking care of himself! I had to.


	12. Magical Massacre

Sorry for the update time! I was out of town for my sister's graduation, and had many issues with travel, including a fantastic bout of airsickness.

**Warnings:** language (of course), Leandra death, angst, and cliffhanger

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><p><em>A wave of telekinetic energy lifts Quentin into the air and slams him to the ground at Garrett's feet, broken limbs incapable of fight or flight. He digs his sword into the blood mage's chest and twists the blade just as flames rupture from the mage's bleeding body.<em>

_His mother staggers, the sick half-light of her eyes fading. He and Marian sprint to catch her but he is closer and she crumples in his arms, staring between their faces. Her shoulders are too broad, an awkward new angle when he holds her, and when she lifts a hand to touch Marian's cheek, he can see the wrists and fingers are too long and slim, the skin paler than their mother's faint tan from working in the garden._

_"I love both of you as if you were my own," she whispers. "Take care of each other. You're all either of you has. Never forget that."_

_Garrett can't look at his sister's face, at the tears he knows must be running down, but he can't stand to see his mother like this—her face already growing papery, ashen to the point that her skin looks gray, and that line on her throat. He shuts his eyes and lowers his head. "I should have paid more attention," he whispers. "I should have known better."_

_Marian shakes her head. "No," she says, in a fierce voice that borders on hysteria, "I can fix this. I can fix this." She repeats it over and over, shaking her head until he wants to shove her away. Even after Leandra takes that last sighing breath and goes limp, his sister keeps muttering._

_He stares at the open, dead eyes, the film settled over them already, unseeing gray that reflects his face back._

Garrett's eyes snap open and he gasps as he wakes up. Merrill sleeps on, her lovely face more innocent and pure, tiny snores emanating from her delicate mouth. He brushes his hand against her cheek and disentangles their limbs, careful not to wake her as he slips first out of the bed, then out of the room.

His feet make no sound as he wanders over the plush red carpets and out to the back garden, now abloom with flowers in the eighteen months that Merrill has lived with him. The plants glow in the moonlight and all the world seems still, as if nothing can move or breathe in this moment but him.

Almost two months since that dissatisfying funeral and he's been having nightmares about her death ever since. Merrill stands by him, offering silent support and a kind ear or gentle advice and sentiments of love. He doesn't know how he'd survive without her, if he didn't have her sweet eyes watching him and her soft fingers reaching out to grip his arm or hold his hand or touch his cheek. She's endured furious tirades against blood magic and helpless weeping, and through it all she's kept the house running with the help of Bodahn and Orana.

He walks through the garden, poking at the plants and remembering how he would watch his mother and Merrill talking in the garden, laughing as they watered and arranged flowers.

Merrill has kept the Arulin'holm out of sight and conversation, even when Marian returns drunk from the Hanged Man and tries to start fights with either of them about it. Every time it happens, Garrett watches her shouts disintegrate to sobs when Fenris comes chasing her from Lowtown, too numb and shaken to comfort his sister.

Some days he goes into Leandra's room to lie on her bed and smell the pillows, which have that lavender scent of her soap and the faint hint of gardening dirt and the Andraste's Grace flowers that Orana lined her closet with. Some days he and his sister sit at breakfast in silence refusing to look at their mother's empty chair, until tears run down both their faces. Some days they fight, screaming at one another in the main hall until Merrill and Fenris intervene. Once he punched Fenris and almost got electrocuted by Marian for it. Twice now Marian has said horrifying things to Merrill about being a manipulating blood mage whore, and once she even tried to slap the Dalish elf.

Tensions are high; Marian refuses to return to the Dalish clan because of their mother's dying wish, while at the same time she spends night after night trying to drink away any semblance of humanity. Garrett, on the other hand, has flung himself into Kirkwall's problems, helping everyone from the Viscount and Aveline with Raiders on the Wounded Coast and the gangs resurfacing throughout Kirkwall to returning lost items to random people for a few coins. The only thing Marian seems interested in doing to help the city is to deal with the Arishok and the religious zealots springing up on every side to attack Qunari. Just as Garrett and his sister are ready to explode, the entire city of Kirkwall is holding its breath, ready for war with the Qunari.

Just a few months ago his life seemed simple, even beautiful. Garrett sighs as he reaches the patch of lavender, inhaling the scent. He reaches down to crush one of the feathery stalks in his fingers, sharpening the odor as he draws it toward his face.

"Garrett?"

He turns, startled, to see Merrill standing in the doorway, her face illuminated by the moon, her soft dark hair loose around her shoulders. A silky white robe shivers in the breeze around her slender form, held shut by her folded arms.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, walking toward her with one hand outstretched. The fingers of his other hand curl shut and his fist twists at his side to conceal the lavender in his palm. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Her green eyes sparkle as he touches her cheek and slides his fingers through her hair. "I was worried about you," she murmurs, turning to kiss the inside of his wrist. "I woke up and you were gone, and I didn't know where you were."

"You found me," he answers, trying to smile. His cheeks ache and it feels stupid, like nonsense. He wraps his arms around her, letting the flakes of crushed lavender fall to the ground behind her.

"Oh, Garrett," she whispers, nestling her cheek against his shoulder. She hugs his waist and he feels her shivering. He can't tell if it's cold or something else. "I hope I have found you. I love you. I'll wait as long as you need. But I miss you."

He blinks at the stinging of his eyes and tightens his grip on her. "Let's go back to bed," he says. Her fingers wrap through his and she leads him back through the house. As they reach their bedroom door he stops her, pausing to cup her cheek in his palm. He stares into her eyes and says, "I love you, too, Merrill."

* * *

><p>Garrett takes a flying leap and slams his sword down, cleaving the crazed Templar Varnell in half. He glances around to see that Merrill has summoned vines from the disgusting Darktown floor that snap men away from her with poison barbs. In a different corner he sees his sister slam the butt of her staff into one man's chin as lightning crashes into another, arcing into two of his compatriots. Fenris swings his greatsword like a baseball bat, tearing through a small cluster of religious nutjobs.<p>

The last peasants try to run off and Marian's head whips toward them. Like chess pieces being lifted by a giant hand, telekinetic force snatches them into the air. They hover for a second, helpless bodies writhing, before the same invisible energy hammers them down so hard and fast that they burst in showers of bone and blood. Flecks of gore splash his face and Garrett stares from the magical massacre he just witnessed to his sister, standing motionless with her jaw taut.

He recognizes that spell as the same one she used on Quentin, the lift-and-slam that put their mother's murderer at his feet. For the first time, Garrett wonders if she left the mage alive so he could have the satisfaction of killing him, or because she meant for him to die in the same slow, torturous way he killed Leandra.

"We need to get the Viscount," Marian says, in the cold voice he remembers her using twice in their previous lives. It sent shivers down his spine then, and considering her power now, Garrett's blood runs cold to hear it.

Merrill steps to his side, already bandaging her arm where she slit it to enhance her spells' power. He wraps an arm around her, numb as he watches Fenris embrace Marian and the two of them disappear in a flash of white light. For a long second he closes his eyes, trying not to think of how the smell of blood and Darktown and magic reminds him of Quentin's lair. Dizzy, he rocks forward and back on his feet, swaying in the dark as he refuses to look at the carnage strewn in the cellar.

"We ought to move the bodies into a better order, to show respect," Merrill suggests after a long minute. He opens his eyes and looks at her, seeing the concern glinting as she gazes up at him.

"No," he shakes his head. "Let the Viscount and the Guards see how it happened, how the Qunari delegates were bound. And how the mob attacked us and murdered them."

She nods and he can feel her shoulders tremble under his arm. After a second of digesting his own words, Garrett draws the elf girl into a hug, tucking her head under his chin and holding her for a long moment. Neither one speaks, both horrified at the carnage and purposeless as the others get the Viscount.

They wait for several minutes before Kirkwall's ruler arrives, his blue eyes horrified as Marian indicates the corpses with a grim expression. He shakes his head and confers with her and Fenris in a low voice, and Garrett feels even more useless, standing across the room with Merrill as his sister handles things.

Aveline arrives a few minutes later with her guards, her jaw tightening as she sees the mess. She joins Marian and the Viscount and after a moment the men start gathering up the bodies of the Qunari, pausing only to cut their bonds and close the dead, staring eyes.

The Guard Captain walks over to Garrett as he watches the grisly work with Merrill, standing beside the couple with her arms crossed. "I can't believe this mess," she mutters. "The Arishok will be furious."

"He is very grumpy," Merrill agrees, slipping out of Garrett's arms but leaving her fingers tangled with his as Aveline approaches. "But the Qunari do seem rather grumpy most of the time."

Garrett can't help laughing at her observation. The sound rings too loud in the room and everyone stares at him for a second. He feels his face flush and looks down. Merrill squeezes his hand and he glances at her to see a small smile on her delicate lips.

"I just hope Marian and Fenris can keep him from attacking the city," Aveline continues after a sidelong look. "You know, she could use your help in this."

"They seem like they've got things under control," he answers, bitterness seeping into his voice.

The redhead narrows her eyes at him for a moment. "You can see that isn't true. She's on the brink of breaking down, and you're not far behind," she says, her tone growing stern. "That's how these bloody zealots managed to creep up before either of you could root them out and prevent this from happening."

He blinks as Aveline turns on her heel and marches out behind her men without another glance at either of them. The Viscount joins the Guards and Marian stares across the room when the four of them are alone.

"What the _fuck_, Garrett?" she demands. "You're laughing about this shit? What's wrong with you?"

"You don't know what I was laughing about, Marian, so just leave me alone," he snaps. "Maybe if you'd put the bottle down once in a while, these psychos wouldn't have murdered a fucking peace delegation."

She steps closer, in his face now, and the illusion of her medieval appearance disappears without the Viscount to witness it. He hates that she can't embrace their new world and try to blend in, but he also wishes he could have his old appearance back.

"Maybe if you tried to help out with what matters instead of wasting your time helping the blood mage fix a portal to demon-land," she sneers.

Garrett grips Merrill's hand. "Come on," he says, "Let's go." He half drags her out of the smelly, dirty cavern, leaving his sister and her boyfriend in the middle of a room full of the bodies they killed.

They hike through the dark city in silence, but Garrett can feel Merrill's questioning gaze on the side of his face the whole time. How she can be so stoic and stable never ceases to amaze him and he resolves to tell her so in every way he can as they step inside, but Marian waits in the front hall for them with her arms crossed.

"Garrett, you and I need to talk," she says, in that same hard voice she announced that they needed to get the Viscount. His hair stands on end and he feels cold all over.

"I'll be in the bedroom," Merrill whispers, planting a kiss on his cheek and squeezing his hand a last time before she drifts up the stairs.

"What do you want?" he sighs, staring at his sister.

"A truce," she answers. "We can't keep this bullshit up. We keep fighting about the same things and getting nowhere. Now this has happened and for all we know it's gonna send the Arishok over the edge. And you're right. That's the fucking thing, Garrett. I hate you for it, but you're right. If we didn't have our heads so far up our own asses, this wouldn't have happened tonight."

He deflates, his shoulders hunching. Suddenly he feels weak and tired, as if the bones in his body have turned to jell-o. "So what are we supposed to do?" he asks, covering his eyes with a hand for a moment and then shoving his fingers back through his hair. "What happens if he does attack?"

"We fight," she answers, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. She takes a long breath and looks in his eyes. "I'm sorry about what I said to Merrill. But… you guys need to just smash that thing to pieces. It won't get you home."

Garrett steps closer and folds his arms. "How do you know? It doesn't even work."

She just shakes her head and walks up the stairs. When she reaches her door she turns, tossing her hair over her shoulder and says, "I know where it leads because I actually looked."

He frowns and moves toward his room when her door clicks shut, mulling over her words until he steps inside his chambers and sees what awaits him. Merrill sits on the bench by the washbasin, scrubbing blood off her cheeks and arms, her slender back hunched over her long legs, feet submerged in the water. Garrett smiles at the sight of her bare skin and shuts his door behind him.

* * *

><p>Garrett and Merrill eat breakfast by themselves the next morning and she excuses herself afterward to go down to the Alienage. He wanders around the house without aim, eventually finding his way to the courtyard to practice sparring against a dummy.<p>

He beats on the mannequin with his sword, hacking it with a series of slashes, slices, and hammering strikes. An hour goes by as sweat gathers on his face and runs down his back, but he doesn't stop, practicing intricate footwork and throwing more and more force into each blow.

When he gets back inside, his shirt draped over his shoulder, he sees a letter on the desk addressed to 'Hawke' and scoops it up. He tears it open and scans the contents, not bothering to read the salutation as the words sink in. The Viscount is panicking, summoning him (or his sister) to the Keep for an urgent problem.

As he re-reads the letter the front door bangs open and he startles, turning to see Fenris sprinting in at top speed. The elf skids to a stop in front of Garrett and stares at him with fury and panic in his gaze.

"Where is she?" Fenris demands, his chest heaving under his armor. "Where is Marian?"

Garrett frowns. "What do you mean?" he asks. "Didn't she go with you to talk to the Arishok this morning?"

The elf man compresses his mouth into a flat line. "We have already spoken. The Arishok said he will not deal with her and her failures anymore and when we were walking out of the camp, she disappeared. Teleported," he explains, "Without me."

"What do you mean, the Arishok won't deal with her anymore?" Garrett asks, his heart pounding. He grabs Fenris' shoulders, the letter crumpling against the spikes, and he doesn't care. "Is he attacking? Did he take her?"

"No," Fenris shakes his head and jerks out of Garrett's grasp. "He said she smelled as if she was—"

A second later Marian materializes in front of them with a flash of bright white light and a breeze as the air shifts to make room for her. She stares with dazed eyes and collapses on the carpet.


	13. A Horrible, Frightening Thing

Thank you for the reviews, and yes, you predicted it. Here's the beginning of the major shift. A nice long chapter with a mix of seriousness and some goofiness.

**_Warnings:_ language, pregnancy, barfing, and Anders has an unrequited crush.**

* * *

><p>The Arishok curls his lip and takes a long whiff of the air as Marian draws close. "You are a warrior no longer," his voice booms through the camp. The other Qunari turn their measured stares toward her and her friends as they halt at the base of the stairs below his throne.<p>

Marian raises an eyebrow and folds her arms. "Well, I'm not carrying a giant sword around," she answers, hiding her confusion with a sarcastic smirk. "That's been kind of an ongoing hint."

The massive Qunari leader stands and stalks down the steps, stopping a few feet in front of her. Marian feels Fenris tense just behind her, and the held breaths of Aveline and Varric behind him. Her shoulders aren't even as wide as the narrowest point of his waist, her head barely reaching to his sternum. Standing like this, Marian has no choice but to tip her head back to meet his gaze.

"You are no longer a warrior, human," the Arishok repeats. He inhales again, through his nose, and Marian has the strong sense that he's sniffing her. Like an animal.

She holds her ground as Fenris taught her, though every instinct screams for her to flinch back from the Qunari leader and his weird behavior. Instead she folds her arms and grits her teeth. "You said that already," she answers, narrowing her eyes. "What do you mean?"

The others remain still as well, and Marian knows they are all thinking the same thing, that he is about to make some callous comment about her mother's death and her grief. She feels the tingling of magic hovering around her grow to a crackle, then a burn, ready to lash out at whatever words come next.

"I have made it clear that I will not deal with a woman in your condition," the Arishok says, turning back toward his throne in a clear dismissal.

Marian lunges forward and grabs his elbow, dangerous as it may be, and when she realizes she can't just pull him around, she darts in front of him and glares. "And what condition is that?" she demands, hands clenched at her sides in sparking fists. "Maybe you don't care when someone dies, but my mother—"

She can't finish the rest, halting with grinding teeth at those two words: my mother. From her vantage on the steps she sees her companions over the Qunari's huge shoulder, their expressions of horror and shock at her reaction. Fenris has that total-body tension that he gets before a fight, and Varric shifts his shoulders to loosen Bianca from her holster for a quick draw.

Yellow eyes narrow at her and his purple-gray lips curl into a sneer. "Have you truly not noticed that you are with child?" he asks, shouldering past her. "The smell of that elf and your baby are stronger than the scent of your magic."

Her ears ring. The magic drains from her hands and her body so fast that she feels her knees weaken. When her fingers tremble she clenches her fists again, and before any of her friends can utter a word, she marches out of the Qunari compound and turns toward the stairs to Lowtown.

"Is he right?" Fenris' familiar deep voice sounds at her shoulder, soft as if to conceal the Arishok's public announcement. She feels him reach toward her, the brush of his steel-encased fingers against her arm, and whirls to stare at him. His green eyes swim with inexpressible emotions—concern, love, hope, fear, perhaps even anger. "Are we going to have a child?" he asks, stepping closer until his stare engulfs and overwhelms her.

Unable to breathe, she pulls her arm out of his hold, backing away and stumbling against a step. Aveline and Varric look on from a distance and Marian feels the weight of their stares compounding Fenris' gaze. Heat flutters in her stomach like a pulse and she feels the reach of a psychic presence. The world spins and disappears as she clenches her eyes shut, the flash of her overused teleportation spell blinding all the way through the front of her brain.

The reek of Darktown overpowers her: sweaty, unwashed bodies milling in their own filth, the sewage and rot pervading the air. Daytime doesn't improve it because daylight never reaches it. Or air. This time of day, though, the clinic stands empty as its keeper gets those few precious hours of sleep he can after slipping off in the early morning.

Her stomach turns and Marian stumbles to one of the many buckets in Anders' clinic just in time. After puking for a few minutes, she lifts her miserable head out of the bucket to see the infamous apostate staring at her with a frown between his soft brown eyes.

Anders crouches beside where she sits on the ground, her robes tangled around her knees and her legs sprawled beneath her hips against the filth of the floor. No matter how clean he keeps the place, the floor is still unmistakably Darktown.

"Marian, are you—?" he asks, cutting himself off as his eyes widen the frown away. He reaches out to touch her shoulder and she feels the probing glow of his healing magic. "Oh, Maker, you _are_. You're pregnant."

"No," she whispers, pushing the vile bucket away from her and hearing the slosh of its wretched contents as it scrapes over the floor. She stands up. "No. I can't have a baby."

As he helps her to her feet he pauses and his eyes narrow on her face. "Why not?" he asks, his voice becoming bitter. "Did Fenris run off the moment he found out? Is it because it's a mage, like you are?"

"No, Jesus," she answers, burying her face in her hands. Her eyes are so dry they ache, as if she's been reading a small-print book for several days without sleep. It should bother her that she's begun to think in Thedas terms—of books, not computers, or that she thinks of the world as 'Thedas' rather than a 'medieval parallel universe.' "Fenris didn't leave me. I just… I don't know. The Arishok announced it after he sniffed me, for fuck's sake. He came up and _sniffed_ me and then yelled it to the whole goddamn camp."

Anders simultaneously wrinkles his nose and shakes his head as he leads her to a table to sit on. "What?"

She dares a glance at him after retelling the whole ordeal, including how she panicked when Fenris asked her and teleported to the last place he would look for her. "We didn't have any idea. I mean, I figured all the stress—that's why I was late." Panic hits her in the brain like a wall to a speeding car. Marian jumps to her feet and starts pacing the clinic, her fingernails digging between her teeth as she gnaws them. Anders stands as well, reaching to steer her off her warpath, but she swats his hands away without stopping.

"Marian, you ought to sit. You're nearly eight weeks along. This kind of stress and worry isn't good for the baby," he announces, blocking her path and stalling her with a hand on each of her shoulders. Serious eyes meet hers and though the shape and color are different, she can't help thinking of Fenris, of how the clear green of his gaze grew murky with the Arishok's goddamn Facebook-status-update method of announcing her business.

She shakes her head. "I've been drinking a shitload. What if I've hurt it? What if I've ruined it?" she says, but she doesn't resist when he guides her and pushes down on her shoulders until her butt lands on an exam table. Her chest aches. "I can't do this, Anders. You have to get rid of it."

He takes a step forward and leans down until they stand eye-to-eye. "No," he says, his voice sharp and his stare frigid. "I will not help you kill your own son. If you can live with that kind of blood on your hands, then do it."

Her palm hits his cheek before she realizes she lifted her hand. The echo of the slap lingers through the cave, filling the silence between them. "You make judgments when you're in my position," she whispers to him, hating the way her voice breaks as she speaks. She meant to sound wrathful, dangerous and threatening when she said it, not weepy. His words sink in a second later. "My son?" she asks.

He nods. "You're having a boy. And he's a mage, too."

"Oh, shit," she says, hunching around her arms on the table. "Shit. I can't have a baby. I _can't_."

"I'm not helping you get rid of him. I couldn't if I wanted to," he answers, turning away from her. "Justice won't let me. Not after—"

Marian jumps off the exam table and grabs his shoulder, pulling him around to face her. Tears threaten her eyes. "I can't do this, Anders. I'm not ready to be a mother. What am I supposed to do?"

He glares at her and shoves her hand away. "You've a man that loves you, a safe home, and the means to give your children anything. Your status and coin will keep him safe from the Templars, and you and Fenris can protect him with your own skills. Not to mention that Garrett is there, and all of us—what better time could there be?" he replies. There's a desperate note in his gaze, a sorrow she can't quite place because her own fears blur it. As he speaks she backs up, terrified of what he's saying because every word makes sense, every excuse she could have come up with flaking to nothing as he continues. "What better way to honor your mother than with new life? Even if she can't meet her grandson, the best thing you can do after that tragedy is to have this boy and love him the way that she loved you, no matter what."

Marian bursts into huge, sloppy tears, the kind of weeping she'd be ashamed of under any other circumstances. After a moment, Anders sighs and hugs her, letting her sniffle all over the shirt he sleeps in when she buries her face in his shoulder. He gives her hair an awkward pat and she draws back, mopping at her face with the back of her sleeve. The mixture of tears and snot and vomit makes her wince.

"Can I, um, wash my face?" she asks him, holding back the last of her tears. After everything, she feels sick and dizzy and wants nothing more than to lie down. "Then I'll head out."

"Take your time. I have to get things ready for the clinic anyway," Anders takes his shirt off and tosses it into a crate of soiled rags as he gathers clean cloths and mutters a spell to create ice in a bucket. He looks skinnier than she remembers, his ribs poking out along his sides and his muscles sharper and leaner, as if he has been running too often and eating too little. The fire spell he murmurs to melt the ice (and hopefully heat the water) seems to drain him more than usual. When he returns with a bucket of water and a clean cloth, she notices the deep circles under his eyes and the gauntness of his cheeks.

"Is everything okay?" she asks him, splashing water on her face and hissing at the freezing temperature. "You're not overdoing it with all that underground shit, are you?"

Anders sighs and turns from the task of placing cloths in tidy rows on a shelf near the bandages and salves and potions. "The mages need all the help they can get," he begins.

Marian stands up to throw away her dirty rag and interrupts the patented speech by placing the water bucket down with a bit too much force beside him. "Anders, you're a mage, too, and if you keep stretching yourself like this, you'll be a lot less help than you could be." She stares at him until he meets her eyes, folding her arms over her stomach. "What if you're so exhausted that you lead a group of young mages straight into Templar arms, or worse, a nest of slavers?"

"That could never happen," he answers with a firm nod, stepping closer to her. "I would rather die than harm an innocent mage-blood child."

She purses her lips and sighs. "Take care of yourself, Anders. I mean it." His stare gets too intense and she grins to lighten the mood. "Who else is gonna help me deliver my baby? Fenris and Garrett?"

He nods and takes an abrupt step back from her. Marian has a sense of crisis averted and tries not to feel a rush of guilt. She smiles at him as best she can despite the tears.

"I'm serious about taking care of yourself, Anders. You're my friend and I don't want you to get hurt trying to save everyone. No one can assume the weight of the whole damn world, not even your powers combined with Justice into Captain Planet." She steps away from the table. "You can come stop at our house for awkward family breakfasts or dinners any time you want. Orana's a great cook and Bodahn's not bad, either."

"I'd like that," Anders smiles at her. "Perhaps I'll stop in tomorrow and check on how you and the baby are doing."

The world flashes to white, but instead of her bedroom, she lands in the front hall. The spell has a different pull to it, as if there's someone else inside of her head, insisting on having their own way—_his_ own way? For a second she stares at her brother and Fenris, who look panicked, startled to see her, then relieved. She registers the full spectrum pass over their faces at her appearance and a second later, the dizziness overwhelms her and she passes out.

* * *

><p><em>Three months...<em>

Sun warms the room and Marian stirs in her sheets. Behind her, Fenris tightens his arms around her and presses his mouth against the tender juncture of her neck and shoulder. She wriggles backward against him, pressing her back to his warm chest as his hands wander over her arms and chest and the faint protrusion of her stomach.

Just as Fenris trails kisses along her neck, slides a leg between her knees and ghosts a hand over her hip, Marian's stomach turns. Again. She lurches out of bed, stumbling to the chamber pot.

As she vomits she hears a frustrated groan from the bed behind her and the shuffle of Fenris shifting over the covers. A moment later his hands brush escaped pieces of her braid away from her sweating face and rub circles on the bare skin of her back. It kills her that just a few seconds ago the same fingers were coaxing fires under her skin. How un-sexy she is.

"How can you stand to look at me like this?" she asks as she leans back and he passes her the glass of water Orana leaves on her bedside every morning. She swishes a sip around and spits it in the chamber pot before gulping the rest of the water back.

"You are beautiful even when you are ill," he answers, pulling her to her feet and hugging her against his chest.

Marian sighs, relaxing into his embrace. "You're obliged to say that," she mutters, pressing her cheek against his shoulder. Almost two months of morning sickness and she's still not used to it, not used to the idea she's going to be a mother. It's too soon, but she has no choice at this point. Every day she wakes up terrified, wanting to run away to God-knows-where, wanting to wake up from this wild medieval dream, afraid that Fenris might already be gone, or that she actually will wake up in her world and realize he was just a dream.

Perhaps the worst part of being pregnant, worse than alternately vomiting and craving strange foods, worse than being treated like glass by everyone (and Fenris is the worst culprit) and worse than the wild hormones that seem to be getting worse, is the fact that her magic has grown unreliable. Sometimes a spell goes just a tiny bit awry—like teleporting her to the hallway instead of the bedroom—but at other times they're far from normal. Lightning sometimes comes out as flames or frost. Some spells are weak, and once she tried to freeze someone only to feel the magic fizzle out in her palm before doing anything. Others spin far stronger than she can control, a fireball that blooms into an inferno, or the time she flung a telekinetic blast at a group of surrounding thugs and broke every window in the Lowtown Bazaar with the ensuing shockwave. Garrett, who's taken over her duties with the Arishok, has told her not to go anywhere near the Qunari in her delicate state. Things have gotten out of hand. Last week the Viscount's son pledged himself to the Qun and was murdered by the Chantry's resident psycho-bitch, Petrice.

Fenris touches the side of her face with his hand and stares her in the eyes. "I find you more beautiful every day. Perhaps it is just my manly pride," he says, "But whenever I look at you I want everyone to know that you are mine and that you carry my child."

* * *

><p><em>Six months...<em>

Fenris returns from a harrowing morning helping Garrett talk to the Arishok, who's patience wanes each day as the eldest Hawke brother takes over diplomatic responsibilities while the Viscount sinks into a depression over the death of his son. Fenris hopes never to know what the ruler is going through. The past six months have taught him that he would do anything for his lover and their unborn son.

He walks into the dining room while Marian is at the table as she dips nug-on-a-stick into hot caramel and takes large bites of it, washing it down with watermelon juice. He halts in the doorway and stares at her. His nose wrinkles and his eyebrows rise.

"What are you eating?" he asks, keeping his voice slow and even. Every instinct he has screams for him to swat that horrible-looking thing out of her hand before she can damage herself or the babies with such poison. But he has learned over the last few months (often painfully) that her hormones have set her on edge. If he asks the wrong way, she will become angry or worse, cry.

Marian appears to be in a good humor, though, because she lifts another nug-on-a-stick up and holds the greasy offering toward him. "You've _got_ to try these. Varric brought them over a few minutes ago. I'm gonna order a basket of them delivered every morning," she announces. She glances around the table, which is strewn with every manner of strange food, and chooses a cinnamon-frosted bacon pastry. Fenris pities both Orana and Bodahn, who have to cook for her mad tastes.

"Thank you, but I am not hungry. I have the corn from that stall in Lowtown," he announces. The trip was terrible—as she would say, it sucked. He found himself growling at several fishwives (who smelled, faugh) who tried to take the last corn from that one damn specific stall that Marian said had the best corn in the city. As a former slave, he's always felt food was food and it didn't matter if the corn was this or that sort so long as you got to eat it. Nowadays, he's begun to realize that food can be a horrible, frightening thing around a pregnant woman.

* * *

><p><em>Nine months...<em>

Marian groans and drops the book she's reading to the stones of the courtyard. Fenris, who has been lying with his head against her stomach absently murmuring Tevinter nursery rhymes, sits up and stares at her with concerned, excited eyes.

"Are you well?" he asks, reaching out to take her hand. Every time she winces or groans or indicates discomfort, her lover jumps up, ready to sprint to Anders' clinic. It's funny sometimes, when she isn't crazy with hormones, because he looks so serious and tense, like he's going into battle.

"I have to pee," she sighs, heaving off the bench and pressing her palms against her lower back to help stabilize the massive weight in front of her. "I always have to pee."

She's forty weeks now, nine months pregnant, ready to pop any day. Her son has grown large enough to weigh on her bladder, a constant pressure that she can't relieve no matter how often she goes to the bathroom. And he wiggles around all the time. She keeps waiting for a small hand to pop out of her stomach, like the _Alien_ movies.

"Have you given any further thought to a name?" he asks as they leave the sweltering summer heat for the shade of the house. "What do you think of Aidan? Or perhaps Bryant?"

"Let's wait til we see him and decide then," she answers, glowering at the stretch of stairs between her and the chamber pot. "Fucking stairs."

Fenris scoops her up without a word and she sighs as he carries her to the bathroom. He seems better equipped to haul around this kind of weight, which makes her wonder why women have to get pregnant instead of men for about the millionth time.

He pauses in front of the door and kisses her, long and slow, before he sets her on her feet. A second later the door bangs open and Varric runs in.

"We got trouble, Sparky!" he yells when he sees her.

"Do not call her that," Fenris growls, glaring over the balcony at the dwarf.

Marian realizes something is very wrong when Varric doesn't smile at their usual banter. "What's going on?" she asks, feeling her heart race as panic clouds her brain.

"The Arishok snapped. The Qunari are invading."


	14. Badass Birthday

Oh, loyal readers... thank you so much for sticking with me. In the next two chapters, I will make you either love or hate me. But everything is getting shot to shit. Say goodbye to your expectations, because I'm about to kick them in the nads.

**_Warnings:_ violence, language, baby-having, the Arishok, angst and betrayal**

* * *

><p>Garrett feels a surge of relief when he sees Fenris slip into the Keep carrying the very pregnant and sweaty Marian, and he actually believes that everything is solved when Isabela makes her grand entrance with the Tome of Koslun.<p>

These wild, idyllic fantasies crash down when the Arishok tells his men to take the pirate prisoner, and even more so when Fenris charges forward and finagles him a duel to the death in exchange for Isabela's freedom. Garrett knows he's a damn good fighter, but against this hulking Qunari warlord, he feels like a kid holding a plastic toy sword.

But he knows that if he fails, his companions will pick up where he left off, and that his sister will see to it the Arishok dies fast, before he can give any further orders. That is, he knows this until he hears her voice utter a cry of pain that she cuts off by choking out the words "you gotta be kidding me."

Garrett glances over to where Marian stands, one hand braced against the wall and the other clutching her stomach, eyes screwed shut in pain. She takes a long, shuddering breath that reverberates through the room, drawing stares and hushed whispers and says, "Oh, _shit_, my water just broke."

Everyone in the room, including the Qunari, snap their heads toward the announcement. Garrett sees her grit her teeth, clutching the massive bulge of her stomach as Anders and Fenris hurry to lower her to the ground.

A deep, menacing laugh booms through the throne room and every noble in there gasps and cowers. "That child shall be the first of the new generation, the followers of the Qun who live without the disease of your society," the Arishok announces.

Garrett turns his attention away from the birth of his nephew (and the dizzying implications thoughts like 'nephew' bring with it) and sets his jaw as his eyes fall on the Arishok. "Like hell," he answers, withdrawing his sword from its sheath on his back.

The first exchange of blows sends him staggering back. He's gauged the Qunari's strength and finds that he needs more than just brute force to survive this. It would be nice to be able to shoot fireballs like his sisters can.

Garrett twists out of the way as the Arishok swings both of his massive blades in a sharp outward arc. The axe gets caught in the pillar and Garrett seizes his chance to slash at his opponent, dancing around to his back and managing to slice the straps of the Arishok's armor and leave a long gash from his shoulder to his hip. Still, the cut doesn't go deep and the Qunari doesn't even seem to notice. He wrenches his axe free of the pillar and charges at Garrett.

For a long, held breath, Garrett stands his ground, spinning out of the way just a second before he can be skewered on the Arishok's sword. He hears sharp, rhythmic breaths and a half-suppressed string of swear words as Marian's stubborn baby picks the worst time possible to be born. And then the Arishok slams into the wall, catching his horns in the stones and gouging holes in the intricate Orlesian wallpaper.

This time Garrett doesn't pull punches, jamming his sword into the Qunari's back and twisting the blade for good measure. He opens the first wound and a gush of blood spills over his weapon, staining the floor. A flash of triumph fills him; he's going to _win_ this.

But the Arishok doesn't give up so easily. He pulls himself free of the wall and spins, jamming his sword through Garrett's armor, through his stomach, all the way out through his back.

He hears a woman scream as the Arishok lifts him into the air and wonders in some distant, shocked corner of his brain if it's Marian or Merrill. All he can see are those yellowed eyes, the fierce snarl on his enemy's lips. Garrett has never been impaled before and the world blurs for a second. He feels his grip weaken on his sword, feels the heat of blood gushing from his abdomen, the inevitable end of the battle drawing near.

A baby cries, the shrill howl reverberating through the Keep.

Garrett tightens his grip on his sword. From this angle he has a clean shot, and he takes it. The Arishok's head rolls across the ground and halts mere inches from where the Viscount's head landed earlier. The two severed heads stare at one another, snarling Qunari and terrified Viscount.

A spray of arterial blood gushes into his face as the Arishok collapses in a heap and Garrett gasps as he uses the last of his strength to push his body off the sword before he can be pulled down by the Qunari's massive weight.

He hears cheers, and around him the world spins with the bright colors of noble clothing and the cries of the people he saved, including the baby. And he can hear the voices of his companions; Marian and Anders loudest of all, insisting people let them through, and, in her case, that Fenris sets her down. Garrett coughs and spits a combination of his blood and the Arishok's out, using his sword to prop himself up on his knees as two healing spells hit him in flashes of blue and green light, one at his stomach and the other at his back.

"—didn't hit any organs—" he hears Anders say.

"—still bleeding—stuck pig—" Marian's sharp response, her voice still breathless and weak from giving birth. He sees a flash of wavy blonde hair and realizes that she couldn't maintain her illusion while she was in labor. It occurs to him that his sister just had a baby while he fought the Arishok, that her son might have picked the most badass birthday imaginable, a day all of Kirkwall will remember.

He hears people shouting his surname, "Hawke" and the word "Champion," making it sound like a capitalized title. With blurring vision he sees the Knight Commander walk in scowling, and then Merrill kneels in front of him and pulls the sword from his hand with gentle fingers. She passes it up to Fenris, who has a small cloth bundle in the crook of his elbow, and the bundle keeps wailing and Garrett is curious to see his nephew. But then Merrill takes both his hands in hers and kisses his lips despite the blood and he stops trying to stay awake. Darkness claims him as cheers and praise surround him.

* * *

><p>Garrett wakes up in his bed with a horrible ache in his side. He blinks in the dark of his room and realizes someone closed all the curtains.<p>

"You're awake," says a woman's voice, and he blinks until the shadowy form resolves into Isabela. Her hair hangs loose around her shoulders, the blue bandana she wears twisting in her fingers. Amber eyes lower as she sits on the edge of his bed.

"Isabela?" he asks, confused. "What are you doing here?"

She sighs. "I'm sorry, Garrett," she says, worrying at her full lower lip. "I never meant to cause all this trouble."

A surge of fury runs through him as he remembers everything. How she stole the Tome from the Qunari and led them to Kirkwall, how she stole it again to protect herself from some smuggler captain, how she ran off and abandoned all of them to the invading Qunari and the wrath of the Arishok. "Why?" he demands, narrowing his eyes at her.

"It… it's all stupid now," she answers. "Castillion is going to kill me for giving the Tome back, but I… dammit. I don't know, Garrett."

He takes a breath as pain shoots through his side and presses a hand over the bandages wrapped around his torso. "I mean, why come back at all?" he says, letting his head fall back on the pillows. "Why not just stick to the easy way like you always do?"

She stands up, giving her bandana a vicious twist. "It's not always that easy, you know," she snaps. "I didn't think—"

"No, you obviously didn't think about anyone but yourself," he interrupts. Much as it hurts, he pushes himself into a sitting position and stares as she paces in tight circles around the room. "You started a war, Isabela. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of people died because of you. Is your life worth that much? Are you that much better than everyone else that you're worth more than all the people of this city combined?"

He's furious, and confused, his head swimming. He wants to see Merrill and Marian and even Fenris. He wants to meet his nephew and hear Varric's epic retelling of his duel and have Anders tend to his wound. He wants to ask Aveline how the Qunari exodus went, to make sure there were no more skirmishes after he defeated the Arishok. But instead he has Isabela waiting at his bedside, making excuses for her damned selfishness.

She halts in front of him, eyes flashing. "I said I'm sorry," she quips, crumpling her bandana in one hand. "What else do you want from me?"

"God dammit," he snarls, "What the hell is wrong with you? Why put everyone in danger and then turn around and try to fix it all up? Why not do the right thing in the first place?"

"Maybe I didn't do it because it was right, okay?" she shouts. He winces as her voice cracks, a note of despair he never thought he'd hear from the confident, shallow pirate woman. That hitch makes his anger wash away like the ebbing tide.

"So then why?" he whispers, staring at her face. For the first time he notices that black streaks run from the heavy makeup on her eyes down her cheeks. She's been _crying_.

"You'll never understand why I did it," she says, staring at him with her mouth drawn in a flat line. He can see that her lips tremble, from fury or guilt or some other emotion. He can't tell.

"Try me," he says.

Isabela shakes her head in a violent arc, pacing away from him again.

They hear the distant sound of voices entering the house through his closed door and she tenses. Garrett watches her, wary, as she whirls to face him. He opens his mouth to protest when she lunges toward him, raising his hands to fend off any attack.

But she doesn't attack him. Her hands circle around the back of his head, gripping his hair, and her lips press against his. Startled, he doesn't react at first, and then he grabs her forearms, holding her in place and kissing her back. Their tongues tangle and he revels in the ferocity of it, the strength of muscles under her skin, the delicate skill paired with hard passion.

They pull back at the same time, breathing hard, and then Isabela backs away shaking her head. Garrett's heart pounds; he doesn't know what to say or think. He's dizzy and shocked and aroused. Never has he kissed someone like that, not even Merrill. Even in bed, he feels the need to treat her delicately, to be cautious in an effort to avoid hurting her delicate body.

"Wait, Isabela—" he says, but it's too late. She darts out the door without looking at him just as Anders and Merrill open it.

The mages give him bewildered and concerned looks as they enter the room with their arms full of bandages, salves, and food from the market. Garrett looks at them, staring at Merrill's lovely, fragile face as she moves to sit beside him on the bed and takes his hand without a word.

"Good to see she feels guilty for getting you skewered," Anders quips, rifling through one of his baskets and ignoring the pirate's hasty retreat.

Garrett shakes his head, resisting the urge to touch his lips, still tingling from where she kissed him. He takes a breath. "How is Marian?" he asks.

As if on cue, two shadows fill the door and he hears his sister's familiar laugh. It sounds different, not the sarcastic snicker or the raucous chuckle he's used to. Her laugh sounds pure, gentle, and joyful.

"I'm better off than you," she says, stepping into his room. Fenris trails beside her, one hand pressed to the small of her back.

"Oh, holy shit, Marian," he breathes, grinning at her as she approaches. Garrett cranes his neck at the blankets she clutches to her chest as she sits on his other side and extends the small bundle toward him. He stares in wonder at the small, wrinkled face as the baby yawns, raising tiny hands to his round cheeks, and then at his sister and Fenris, looking on with matching flushes of pride. "What did you name him?"

They exchange glances and she says, "Garrett. We named him after you, seeing as you'd been sort of stabbed and... well, we just thought it was a good idea at the time."

* * *

><p>Garrett limps up the dock where the boat's been moored, his hand pressed against his wound and his eyes fixed on the pirate woman climbing the rigging. He staggers to the end of the pier and shouts her name, gratified at her startled expression when she turns and sees him.<p>

"What are you doing here?" she asks, hopping from the deck to land in a graceful crouch. She straightens and plants a hand on her cocked-out hip.

He takes a breath. He doesn't know why he's here, just that he's angry and confused and betrayed, that he hasn't been able to stop thinking about that kiss three days ago and that he needs answers. If only he knew the questions. "You're leaving?" he knows he's being evasive, deflecting her question with one of his own, but he can't answer her.

Isabela gestures at the ship and stares back at him through her heavy lashes. "So it seems," she answers.

Silence descends and they just stare at one another. Garrett wants to take a step forward, to reach out for her, and yet he knows he should turn and go before he can let that happen. Someone on the deck of the ship calls out to Isabela and she glances up before turning back to him.

"Did you come to yell at me a bit more?" she asks, folding her arms under her breasts. She has to have practiced that, has to be aware that it pushes them up and together as if to make an offering of her cleavage. "I've got to be off soon."

Garrett shakes his head. "I just..." he sighs and shuts his eyes against the sight of her, the dark skin and full lips and deadly curves that embody sex and danger. And then he opens his eyes again and stares at her a second before he steps up and grips her waist, kissing her with the same frenzied desperation she showed him before. The wound on his side screams agony and he bites her lip, crushing her closer, tangling his fingers in her hair and crushing their mouths together until she moans and shoves him away. He stares at her, heart racing, more confused and terrified at what he's done. "Don't go," he whispers.

Her amber eyes glitter with sadness. "I have to."

* * *

><p>I know, damn men for thinking with their pants. But... there is a reason. I promise. Not to say it's forgivable, but this is part of Garrett's journey.<p> 


	15. A Wad of Mashed Potatoes

I love all of my review bunnies! This chapter is, well, it's for you. I'm sorry that it has to go this way. But then, as someone said, I'm not big on baby-fics either (unless it's a post-game oneshot... somewhere on my favorite stories is a brilliant Fenris introspection about how he views his kids when they're born). Since the baby-having is a major plot point and babies are just so cute and fluffy, I thought I'd give everyone a fuzzy little chunk of joy before I ruin the characters' lives.

**_Warnings:_ fluff, violence, language, death, and the Canon Shift has arrived**

* * *

><p>Marian winces as a wad of mashed potato splashes Fenris in the face and tries not to laugh. He raises his eyebrows at their son, who sits in her lap giggling, and wipes the sticky chunks from his face and hair with a sigh. She tightens her arms around the baby and hides her snickering in his dark hair, bouncing him in her lap.<p>

"I never thought I'd see the day," Varric laughs, lifting his wine glass in a toast. "Family dinners are much better at your house than they ever were at mine."

Since little Garrett has been born, Varric (and all of their friends) have come around the house more often. The dwarf claims it's because she and Fenris refuse to go anywhere these days, but she knows he revels in the way the baby stares at him with wide eyes as he tells stories. Anders pretends he's there strictly for checkups, but he seems to bring an awful lot of stuffed toy cats and blankets embroidered with kittens and other cat-printed paraphernalia. Aveline doesn't bother pretending that she comes by for any other reason than to play with their son and give wistful, unsubtle hints to her husband.

"That is because your brother is a bastard," Fenris says in a conversational tone. He glances at Varric and resumes eating the tender chicken Orana cooked. Even after three years, she insists on eating in the kitchen, but since the baby she asks every night if they want her to feed him. The elven girl adores their son almost as much as they do, and gets excited every time they ask her to look after him even for a few minutes.

Varric snorts and shakes his head. "And the Merchants' Guild," he adds.

"How's that been going?" Marian asks, shifting the baby to her other leg. Garrett is not just heavy, he's mobile now that he can crawl.

"How do you think?" the dwarf answers. He finishes the chicken and pats his stomach. "That was delicious. My compliments to the chef."

Fenris finishes cleaning his plate a moment later and takes a sip of wine. "Any news on the mansion?" he asks, referring to Danarius' old mansion, which has become decrepit since Fenris all but abandoned it. He still insists on keeping it unoccupied, lest his former master return.

"Still just as empty as it was when you stopped living there a year ago," Varric quips. He makes no secret of the fact that he finds it pointless to waste time and money keeping the questioning eyes away and the whispering mouths shut. Nor does Aveline, though she is, of course, more direct in her criticism.

"Hey, that's my food," Marian says when her son digs his fist into her potatoes and stuffs them in his mouth. He smacks his lips and turns wide green eyes up at her and she can't help laughing. Fenris explained long before Garrett was born that he'd be human, but she loves that their son has his father's eyes.

"He's a growing boy," Fenris says, moving around the table to kiss Marian and steal the baby from her lap. They stare at each other as Fenris holds the boy on his hip, both pairs of green eyes wide, and then he leans to kiss the baby's round cheek, careful to avoid the smear of potato and gravy. Garrett waves his arms and yells 'Da-da-da-da-da!'

"Never thought I'd see Broody here smile, either," Varric adds, hopping off his chair and emptying his glass. "But who doesn't melt when they look at that face?"

Orana comes in and shoos them out of the dining room with a smile, pausing to kiss little Garrett when Fenris holds him toward her. The baby waves his chubby fists and shrieks happily when they settle in the living room around the fire, everyone lounging on the array of cushions piled there.

Marian and Fenris lean against each other, between their son and the fireplace, while Varric tells the story of Ser Aveline with a number of creative embellishments. The baby crawls between his parents and the dwarf, sitting on Varric's knee for a while and then crawling back to curl up and fall asleep in his father's lap.

"So," says Varric as he finishes the tale. He raises his eyebrows and Marian has a feeling he's been building up to this all night. "Your son is almost a year old now and you two still won't leave the house at the same time. You two used to be the unstoppable adventurers, and now you're all boring and stuck at home. When are you going to come out some night, just to beat up thugs for old times' sake?"

Fenris glares. "We have a child," he snaps. Garrett makes a noise and twitches on his lap and Fenris glares harder at Varric, hugging his son.

She nudges him and tries a more tactful approach. "What he means is if we were both hurt, then Garrett would be alone. We can't both go out risking our lives in battle when he's here waiting for us," she explains, glancing at the sleeping baby.

"Are you kidding me? He wouldn't be alone for a minute," Varric answers, pulling out his hip flask and offering it to them. "First of all, you two aren't that easy to kill. Second of all, even if the worst did happen, your brother and Merrill and Aveline and Anders and I would all take care of him and love him. More than we already do, I mean."

"You're trying to steal our son," Marian accuses, grinning as she takes a sip of whiskey and passes it to Fenris. "I knew it, you diabolical bastard."

Varric chuckles and spreads his hands. "You're onto me," he answers, leaning forward to accept the flask when Fenris passes it over. He takes a long draught and caps it, giving them a thoughtful stare. "What about just coming to the Hanged Man for Wicked Grace tomorrow?"

"Are you sure that is any less dangerous?" Fenris asks, straight-faced.

"Actually, since Isabela went on her little vacation, it's been a lot less dangerous. We need you to come scowl and swear under your breath, Elf," Varric answers, a smirk playing over his wide mouth. "Get the illusion of danger going again."

Marian and Fenris exchange glances, both smirking. They turn back and he speaks for both of them in that perfect deadpan when he says, "How can we refuse such an offer?"

* * *

><p>Marian grins at Fenris as they leave the Hanged Man, giddy at their first night out in ten months. Of course the others are just getting started with their drinking and games, but to them, as parents, three hours before midnight is <em>late<em>. Anyway, with it being Bodahn and Sandal's night off, that leaves no one but Orana at the house with little Garrett. She knows no one would be fool enough to break into the Amell Estate now, she wants to be sure he's safe.

"It's been too long since we've gone somewhere together," Fenris says, weaving his fingers through hers. He's been somewhere between smug and giddy all night. Even fatherhood hasn't made him act so strange and bubbly, but she's not going to complain about one of his rare good moods.

She laughs and squeezes his hand, resting her cheek against his shoulder as they walk across the bridge to Hightown. "We have a baby. We need to ease up on the partying," she answers.

He releases her hand in favor of wrapping an arm around her shoulders and kisses her hair. "That was no party. Varric hadn't even gotten to the bad whiskey," he chuckles.

"Is there good whiskey at the Hanged Man?" she asks, feigning shock. "Have they been holding out on me?" She pretends to swoon, letting him catch her as she falls back.

Fenris smirks at her and scoops her up to run through the silent marketplace. She laughs as he sets her down, pausing as they ascend the stairs from the silent marketplace and turn toward her house. She turns to face him at the gentle pressure of his arm, leaning against his chest as he runs his hands through her hair and kisses her. They cling to that moment as the kiss deepens and wrap their arms around each other.

Moments alone are few and far between since Garrett's birth. While Orana adores him and almost demands as many nursemaid duties as she has the nerve to, Marian and Fenris are both loathe to lose out on any time with their son and dote on him: his sweet little cheeks and the tiny fists, his tiny snores as he snuggles between them in the bed at night, the way he smiles at them as he sits on the floor and swats a wooden spoon against the tiles. Fenris decided to teach him to swordfight the first time he saw that. And while he hasn't so much as sneezed an ounce of magic, Marian can sense it in there, lurking and growing with his awareness of the world.

She pulls back, touching his cheek with a hint of regret. "Let's go see him before he goes to sleep," she grins, leaning forward to plant a quick peck against his mouth.

Taking his hand once more, she leads him to the door of the Estate and halts as he does. No lights shine in the windows or seep through the door. The silence hovering around the walls sends chills up her spine. Electricity tangles in her hair and over her skin.

Fenris takes a deep breath and his eyes narrow. "Something is wrong," he growls, his hand tightening around hers with crushing force before releasing in favor of his sword. He shoulders ahead of her, pushing the door open with a creak, his blade raised. It's too quiet, she thinks, and can see from the tension in his shoulders that he's thinking the same thing.

They walk through the foyer and into the hall to see that the fire has gone out. Unusual, because Orana keeps it hot when she's left to her own devices. Something about Tevinters needing it warm. Marian frowns and flames spring up over the cold wood, illuminating the room.

She screams.

Blood streaks everywhere in ugly ritual symbols and the reek of magic flares when light hits them. Orana lies at the foot of the stairs, pale, the last of her blood pooled beneath her. Fresh bruises cover her face and arms and ribs, and a thick gash runs straight through her chest. At least she died instantly.

Neither she nor Fenris thinks about the dead servant when they see all the blood, though. They race up the stairs, both screaming their son's name. No laughter. No happiness. No baby, anywhere. Over the next panicked hour they tear the house apart. They fling every piece of furniture over, pull every book from the shelves, every piece of linen and clothing from the wardrobes and every dish from the kitchen. When the house is ruined they find themselves facing each other in the hall, hearts pounding. Marian's face is wet with tears, but Fenris has a snarl of loathing on his.

He holds a crumpled note toward her, his fingers flexed so tight around it she can't pull it from his grasp. He utters one word that makes her stomach drop, that makes her collapse against him weeping and terrified and furious, trembling for her son:

"Danarius."

* * *

><p>Marian hates the Silent Plains. She hates the fact that they have to move so slow, trudging over miles when they can't find caravans to travel with, because she can't teleport through the unfamiliar countryside where her magic could get them both killed. She hates that they eat in a rush and sleep only a few hours every night before starting off again. She hates stealing the first time she does it and hates it more and more each time after. She hates that without a word, both go into dangerous areas to kill the bandits and monsters and camp there each night to slake some measure of mutual bloodlust. She hates that when they make camp, Fenris grips her with a measure of desperation and ferocity that frightens her, devouring her as if every night will be their last, because she feels the same way. Most of all, she hates how afterward he tells her about Tevinter as they lie naked in front of the fire, describing the atrocities she must pretend to be comfortable with and the behavior she herself must display if their disguise as Magister and slave is to work.<p>

"I know why Danarius took him," Fenris says one night, as her head rests on his chest and he clamps her to his side with a strong arm.

"Because he's a sadistic fuck," she mutters, glaring into the night with that twisting rage bubbling up again. They keep themselves tired and busy to avoid thinking about it too much, focusing on immediate tasks because losing their son aches beyond fear or horror or fury. It's a hole inside that keeps growing, one they can't fill with one another or with any amount of killing, not that they don't try.

"In his eyes, our son is his property," he explains, "Because he is the offspring of a slave." His fingers tighten against her skin and she feels bruises forming but she doesn't complain. The pain, sharp and real, keeps her from falling apart. He loosens his grip when their eyes meet and trails his other hand over her face with an apologetic gaze.

She closes her eyes after a moment, unable to see the green stare that Garrett inherited from him, the tender eyes that have the same agony and horror she's experiencing. When she looks at him again, it's with an idea that's been pressing against the back of her mind for a few days, growing sharper and taking form until it becomes actual thought. Her jaw tightens under his palm and her eyes burn into his.

"We're going to destroy them," she says. Her voice sounds fierce and ragged, and the fire pops and dances higher as she speaks. "Not just Danarius, but all of the Magisters. We're going to kill the Magisters until they run out of Magisters to throw at us."

Fenris smirks, but his eyes grow sad. "Even you cannot stand against all of them," he murmurs, brushing her hair over her ear with his thumb. "I would rather have our son and you alive and well."

"I know," she whispers, burying her face in his shoulder.

They fall silent until sleep claims them, the dark, dreamless sleep she's maintained for both since their son was stolen. Before, they used to dream together, the whole little family wandering through magical meadows and lounging on crystalline beaches. Marian would invent beautiful places to explore, leading Fenris and Garrett through the wild paths of the dreams. In the mornings, they awoke to a strange, warm awareness of one another, a psychic bond that grew with each dream. When they were all in the house together, she knew what each was feeling: the warm rush of joy the baby got whenever someone picked him up, or that disbelief and wonder Fenris had when he stared at their son.

A few days later they encounter a Dalish clan. Marian knows better than to use any of their native words, though she learned many when she and Fenris stayed with the Sundermount clan. The elves address him, though they give him wary stares as they admit them to the camp. Both of them note the positions where other warriors must be hiding with arrows trained on them and Fenris takes her hand with a quiet, protective growl. But their Keeper knows Marethari, and soon a runner has sent word back to the elves of Sundermount. They stay with the clan for two nights, trying to recover some hint of the peace they once had, before the Qunari invaded or their son was taken, before Danarius' endless cruelty pervaded their lives yet again.

The morning of the second day, a few hunters take them out to find food. Most of the animals available on the Plains are small, rabbits and birds and the occasional stringy prairie dog. Marian can't shoot a bow worth a damn and Fenris isn't much better. Frustrated, she shoots a rabbit with a bolt of lightning, singing the fur from it and leaving a cooked lump of meat in the field. When the other elves stare at her with expressions ranging from impressed to horrified, she shrugs.

"Pre-cooked," she says, scooping the rabbit into her pouch and marching back toward the camp. She and Fenris discover that it's overcooked when they eat it at the fireside later, but at this point it hardly matters. They wander away from the camp for some privacy and she falls asleep pinned by his weight, cushioned by their clothes amidst the tall grass of the Plains. As planned, they leave the next day.

The Keeper stops to talk to them as they pack their belongings the next day. She's young, not much older than Marian, but has the wise stare of someone much older.

"Ma serranas, strangers," she says, touching her brow as if to wish them well. "I received word from Tevinter in the night. This magister you seek, he is called Danarius, is he not?"

Both she and Fenris stiffen and stare at the Keeper. "What news do you have?" he asks, eyes narrowing.

"It has been said that he has a new apprentice, a boy-child, and that he has spent the week presenting the child to the other Magisters," the Keeper says. Marian holds her breath. "He is dark-haired, as you said, perhaps six or seven, and has manifested magical powers. Is this your son?"

"No," she answers, her head swimming with terror and disappointment. "Our son is just a baby." Where has Danarius taken her son? What is he doing to him?

In silence, they finish packing their things, nodding as the Keeper blesses their travels, and they walk north, toward the Imperium. They move faster, to make up for lost time among the Dalish or to hurry and confirm what the Keeper said, she doesn't know. They don't speak until they make camp for the night, and she can see the troubled frown creasing the skin between Fenris' drawn brows. She waits until he sits down beside her, until he speaks.

"It is not entirely impossible that Danarius might have... done something to Garrett," Fenris murmurs. He crosses his arms and shivers, staring into the flames with unseeing green eyes. Marian can tell he's remembering. "He fancied himself a master of experiments and discovery."

She hesitates. "I don't think it's really possible to age someone, even with powerful magic," she says, her voice quiet and slow. He can't. He can't have stolen her baby and then stolen those early years, the first steps and sentences, the childish wonder of discovering the world.

Fenris jumps to his feet. "Do not try to deny it," he shouts, glaring at her. He pulls his gauntlet off and shakes his tattooed arm in her face. "I am living proof that his cruelty knows no bounds. If he had such a spell, he would use it to hurt us, to manipulate our son... for any number of cruel reasons."

Marian's eyes burn and she looks away from him. "Don't," she whispers.

He shakes his head, seizes her shoulders, and hauls her to her feet in front of him. Livid green eyes swallow her stare, his face inches from hers and his teeth bared in a snarl. "Do _not_ try to deny it," he hisses. "You must be prepared for the worst."

"No," she says, gritting her teeth. He shakes her and her head snaps back against her neck. Fury rises in her: fury at the Magister, at her lover for not letting her enjoy this bubble of safe denial for one last night, at herself for not being there to prevent this. "I won't let him. I swear to God, if he's hurt Garrett, if he's done some sick aging spell on him, I'll find a way to reverse it. Even if I have to use blood magic. I'll bleed Danarius out myself to reverse his spell."

"Don't you dare," he growls, fingers digging into her shoulders until she feels bruises forming under the skin. His voice rises from that low, intense note of cold fury to a heated shout. "Swear you won't use blood magic on him. _Swear it_!"

She shakes her head, narrowing her eyes. "He took our son, Fenris. There's nothing I won't do to get him back."

His hand cracks across her cheek and she stumbles, her face stinging. He's never hit her before, not during sparring lessons or even by mistake in battle. She tastes blood in her mouth and stares at him as a dribble trails down her lip. He watches her with horror in his gaze, shaking his head, as if he can't believe he did it either. For a second they stare at each other across the space created by that one slap, and then she crosses to him and punches him in the face.

He grabs her shoulders again but this time he kisses her, rough mouth tasting the blood in hers, and they manage to tear their clothes but not to fully remove them and the violence is passion and the passion is violent and she realizes before she falls asleep against him that there's been no passion since Garrett disappeared.


	16. Draw the Line

Okay. It's condensed, but there's a lot going on here. I tried to make up for my last several cliffhangers by only throwing a partial cliffhanger at you. And to answer any questions, yes, this chapter and the next have some time overlap, thanks in large part to the massively different locations that they take place in.

_Thanks for hanging on for the ride, readers and reviewers!_

**_Warnings:_ angst, anger, politics (thanks, Meredith), wisdom from Aveline, and (sorry) more death**

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><p>Garrett runs both hands through his hair, eyes stinging with that dry ache of perpetual tiredness, his beard scruffier than usual, itching his cheeks and where it spreads onto his neck. "Nothing?" he repeats, for the third time, staring across the desk at Varric.<p>

The dwarf nods with downcast eyes and a sad expression. "Nothing in six days," he answers. "Not since that caravan headed for Cumberland."

It wasn't hard to figure out where Marian and Fenris went when he returned home to Orana's cold corpse and a ransacked house covered with blood after crashing at the Hanged Man the entire night before. They had an entire night's head start and now all that remains of his sister and her elf is that note from Danarius telling them he has their son. Garrett reads it over and over every day, the four words and unmistakable signature, until the paper goes soft from repeated crumpling after a week. Now, a month after their disappearance, the ink has faded so much that he can barely make out the words. He keeps wondering why they didn't come and tell them, why they just left without gathering help from their friends. He's been pushing everyone to their limits, demanding information from their contacts even though there's hardly anything. They've disappeared into the Silent Plains and he knows they're headed for Tevinter and he knows what they're probably planning.

"We have to go after them," he growls at his companion. He slams his palm against the tabletop. "_Why_ haven't we done anything?"

"We've been looking for them, Hawke," Varric says, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture. "They have too good a head start on us, and the Plains are a big place. If they manage to find a Dalish clan to travel with, there's no way we'll be able to find them."

"Hawke," says a sharp voice from the doorway. Aveline stands there with her arms folded, glaring daggers at Garrett. "You're late for your meeting with Meredith. It's not a good plan to leave the Knight-Commander waiting."

"Fuck Meredith," he snarls with such venom that Varric, who's been leaning up on the table to read a map of Nevarra, startles back.

"You have obligations," she answers, her tone allowing no argument. "You're the Champion of Kirkwall and you've no choice but to keep this city from imploding."

Garrett gets to his feet and stalks toward her. "My sister-" he begins.

Aveline straightens and stares him down, interrupting. "Marian can take care of herself. She has Fenris with her and they're out of our grasp now. So the best thing you can do right now is to step up and do the things that you have to do," she says, pointing a finger in his face. "Now make yourself presentable and get your ass moving. You, too, Varric."

"We should be going after them," he protests, but Aveline points a finger at the door and he finds himself obeying just as the dwarf falls in behind him.

An hour later his mood is, if possible, even worse. Even after he publicly told the Knight-Commander to shove it in the middle of Hightown, she insists on making him hunt down apostates. He has half a mind to set them all free and tell her they're dead. Aveline is pissed, though Varric seems amused, because he told Meredith to shove it (again) and said he wouldn't do her dirty work. Then when she pointed out that Marian remained an apostate at her whim, he almost killed her on the spot, snarling about Bethany. In the end, he was 'escorted' from the Gallows by two armed, glaring Templars.

Merrill joins them in the Alienage and Garrett avoids her questioning stares as they talk to the wife of one of the apostates. He tried so hard after that late-night kiss with Isabela to be better for her, to treat her with all the love and adoration she deserves. But he feels the growing distance, the divide between them increasing in size each day. She spends more and more time locked up with the Eluvian in the Alienage, trying to make it work, even falling asleep there most nights of the week. He wishes that he misses her, that he feels the urge to seek her out and win her back. But as tensions rise in the city, and now that Marian's gone, he finds he cares less and less that their relationship is falling apart.

By the end of the day, after fighting a murdering blood mage and a crazy abomination and sending an idiot drunkard off to buy women by claiming he's a blood mage, Garrett wants nothing more than to have a drink. But Merrill stops him with a hand on his arm as he heads toward the bar, green eyes wide and worried on his face.

"I've received word from one of my clan," she says, the words clipped, almost irritated. "Your sister and Fenris found our sister clan in the Silent Plains a few days ago. I don't know if they're still with them, but as of three days ago they were in good health." She takes a step back from him and he catches her slender hand in his.

"Thanks," he whispers, surprised at how dry his throat feels. He takes a step forward and hugs her, stroking her hair. Her arms steal around his waist but he feels how stiff she stands, how uncertain she seems at the gesture. After an awkward second, he releases her. Garrett stares at her face for a moment and lowers his gaze, feeling guilty as he starts, "Merrill, I'm sorry-"

"Sh," she says, touching her index finger to his lip. "Don't be sorry. We'll find your sister and figure out a way to help her. That's what's important right now."

He wants to thank her, to kiss her, to take her back home and beg her not to leave, but she turns and walks away. His heart hammers and his head swims and Varric glances at him from halfway up the stairs, where he paused to eavesdrop. The dwarf motions him up to the suite, where Garrett knows there's ale and cards and a companion who won't push him. After a final glance as Merrill walks through the door, he sighs and walks up the stairs.

* * *

><p>Garrett isn't paying attention as Aveline's shield arm snaps out and he gets pummeled in the jaw by the hard wood of the practice shield. She halts and gives him a baleful look and long-suffering sigh as he rubs his sore chin and spits some blood out.<p>

"You're too distracted, Hawke," she says, shaking her head. "If you want to help your sister or this city- if you want to help _anyone_- you need to stay sharp. Stay focused."

He glares at her. "Why don't you take care of things? What are you doing all day in your office?" He takes a step forward, gesturing with the massive practice sword over his head. "Why can't I leave and go look for Marian? Why do I have to take care of everything? When did saving Kirkwall become my sole responsibility?"

"Stop it," she snaps, tossing sword and shield aside. "You're the Champion. The Knight-Commander is overstepping her bounds at every turn and the mages are getting worse and worse as they try to escape or fight back. The next thing you know, Anders will be trying to start a revolution by burning the Chant of Light in the middle of Hightown. The city needs you. And before you get on your high horse again, I'm doing all I can. The Templars are trying to elbow me out and it's all I can do to keep them from turning the Guard into Meredith's lackeys." Her green eyes meet his and her brows draw together and Garrett scowls and drops his padded sword as he recognizes defeat.

"How did I get embroiled in this ridiculous political bullshit?" he grumbles. "Of course I'm not gonna let Meredith trample the Tower Mages to death. Bethany's in there. But what about all of these crazy bastards and these abominations and all of that other stuff? Who the fuck handed me the chalk and said 'draw the line?'" He gestures with furious hands as if to demonstrate his brain exploding with fists that flash to jazz hands. "Who picked me? I'm gonna cut their arms off."

Aveline smirks and shakes her head. "The people of Kirkwall chose you, Hawke. Now it's up to you to prove to them they made the right choice."

* * *

><p>Garrett can't look at Merrill as they walk back to Kirkwall, away from the corpses littering Sundermount. He thought he was helping her, by winning the Arulin'holm from the clan and giving her the time and space she needed to work on the mirror, by not questioning the things she did to make it work. But the past few hours have shown him that everything he thought he knew about her was wrong, that when Merrill sealed that demon at the top of Sundermount to possess the Keeper, she acted out of selfishness and pride and nothing more. But worse than that, she didn't learn after losing the one person who cared most for her in the world, choosing to kill her entire clan rather than face justice.<p>

Varric and Aveline remain silent as well, walking behind them on the path until they reach the city gates and make a hasty retreat. Garrett grips Merrill's arm in his hand and leads her with firm steps up to Hightown and into the Estate, dragging her by the bedroom and ignoring her questions. He can't hear anything but the ringing screams of the murdered Dalish as he slams the door behind them and stares at her.

"Take your things," he says, his chest tight and his voice ragged.

Her green eyes fill up with tears and he turns away. His head aches and his feet feel like they're floating several feet off the ground. He grips the desk for balance against this swimming, frightened sensation. "Garrett," she whispers, and he clenches his eyes shut against the sound. "After everything... you're going to leave me now?"

Some barrier in him breaks, the shattering sound of a mirror or of glass joining the echoing screams in his mind. He whirls to face her. "You still don't get it, do you?" he yells. "You don't even realize that you just killed all of your people for a stupid fucking mirror that was killing people before you started playing with it. What kind of idiot does that? You're worse than Isabela, because it's not your life that you'd sacrifice anyone and everyone else to preserve but your weapon of mass destruction."

She takes a step back, startled, her face wet with tears and her eyes glittering with fear. "Please," she whispers, a broken sound that he knows comes from the part of her that knows what he's saying is true. He wants to reach in there and tear into it, to widen that gap to encompass the entirety of her being.

"You're selfish. You don't care who dies, as long as you get recognized for doing something great. Even if the only people who think you're great are demons and darkspawn," he sneers. He points a finger at her, takes a step closer, consumed by the sudden urge to destroy her very soul with his words. "My sister was right. Every word she said, every warning she gave me, she was right. You're a dangerous, demon-summoning blood mage, Merrill, and you need to get out of here. Because you're everything that the Templars warn us about. You're worse than Huon murdering his wife, because you murdered _everyone_."

With a sob she turns and runs out of the door, leaving her clothes and the few plants she's placed around the room behind. Garrett stands still, his ears still ringing, but now with his own cruel words. He hears the front door slam and waits for a long moment before he walks outside and down the street, to the Blooming Rose. Not that he wants a whore, but he knows he can go here without being noticed by any of his companions now that Isabela's disappeared.

He walks in and sees his uncle, Gamlen, leaning against the bar and trying (unsuccessfully) to flirt with one of the girls. Garrett sighs and, with a shake of his head, steps into the space next to his uncle.

"Garrett?" exclaims the older man, thick brows rising. In spite of the allowance they give him each month for rent and food, Gamlen remains unshaven and receives regular eviction threats from his landlord. "What are you doing here? Thought you had yourself some Dalish doxie living up at the mansion."

With a sigh, he eyes his uncle, trying to determine how drunk the man is. "She's gone. It's a long story. I don't want to talk about it," he answers. "And I'm here so I don't have to talk about it, because everyone else is probably talking about it with her in the Hanged Man, so I can't really go there right now."

Gamlen nods and snorts into his cup as he lifts it to his mouth. "Women. They take everything when they go, huh?"

"More every time," Garrett mutters. He raises his eyebrows and motions for the bartender with a sovereign in his hand. She makes a drink appear like magic and bats her lashes as she sweeps away.

"Still no word on your sister, then?" asks Gamlen, his tone cautious. The last time they saw each other a month ago, Garrett reamed him for asking and his uncle's been scarce since.

Before Garrett can answer, an excited cry goes up from one of the tables in the back. He turns as a rush of colorfully-dressed people hurry to the door, craning his neck in an attempt to see who they've flocked to. Gamlen watches, too, silent for once in his life, and after a moment the feathers and lace and sparkles sweep aside to reveal Isabela, smirking and confident as ever in her scanty clothes and gaudy jewelry.

Her eyes fall on him and she saunters up with that familiar sway and confidence and plunks her elbows down on the counter. "Well, Hawke, I hadn't thought I'd find you here," she purrs, in the sort of tone that implies it's exactly where she expected to find him. He feels his cheeks heat and struggles to hide any flush, tossing back his drink and waving for another.

"You're back," he chokes after downing the next drink as well. His uncle stands as a quiet observer, a knowing glint in his eye that Garrett wants to punch.

Isabela shrugs. "I said I'd be back," she answers. A drink appears for her as well and she takes it, swirling the liquid for a moment before taking a sip. "And I'm back a good bit earlier than I planned. Did you know that your sister leveled a city block in Minrathous? Tevinter's a mess and I got good coin for bringing word back."

He grabs her shoulder and spins her to face him. "What do you know?" he demands, desperate. "Did you see them? Did you talk to them?"

She smirks at him. "I did you one better. I brought her and that brooding elf and their boy back to Kirkwall."

At that moment, Garrett forgets all the other traumas of the day. He grips Isabela's face between his hands and kisses her in front of his uncle and all the staff and clientele of the Blooming Rose.


	17. Pirate Babysitters

A/N: Wow, I am so sorry that I've been so slow with the last few chapters. I'm reaching sort of the end to this story, and it's going to get more and more complicated (woohoo!) while returning to the humorous side of things. Still lots of action scenes and battles to be fought, so never fear!

**Warnings:** language, graphic violence, death (in droves), mentions of sex, broody Isabela, Fenris POV and the phrase "baby-daddy." Sorry. I had to.

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><p>Fenris has seen Marian Hawke kill in many brutal ways, has seen her fierce side before, but never like this. As soon as they reach Minrathous, he leads her to Danarius' castle near the center of the city, a sprawling and ghastly place that sends prickles of fury, fear, and loathing over his brands. He glances at her as they approach the gate and her eyes meet his, the ice blue of her illusory face's gaze flinty.<p>

"Halt!" one of the guards yells as they approach and both men lift into the air. A shattering crack sounds and their corpses drop with necks askew.

He hears the swish of her taking the staff from her back and unsheathes his greatsword, palms flexing around its familiar weight. Half a dozen more guards come running toward them and the sky overhead darkens. His ears pop as he sprints toward the armed men and lightning flashes down in thick, searing bolts that shear through the men's armor and pin them in place for the arc of his blade. Shouts fill the courtyard and more men come rushing in, attempting to dodge the lightning as it gathers force, and a frigid wind blows in their faces to slow them and freeze them into easily-shattered statues. As men swarm at him he loses sight of her but the magic hovers nearby, the storm gaining power and somehow lending strength and speed to his blows, so that the guards around him fall in groups of five or six rather than twos and threes.

When the fight ends and the storm dies down he turns to see her standing in a ring of bodies and his gut wrenches. He's killed a few dozen but she may have taken on a small army by herself, and the bodies are little more than bloody streaks in some cases, bones and armor ripped askew and apart. Blood covers her face and robes and hair, but that dark-haired illusion remains in place and he realizes she hasn't even been wounded.

"Let's go," she says, walking past him. He feels a twinge that they no longer embrace one another after a battle, that the ritual they kept for so long has faded since their son went missing. But then, looking at the monstrous death she's wrought upon these guards, a part of him doesn't _want _tohold her right now.

The doors of the castle slam open with another burst of that freezing wind and he can't believe it when Danarius himself steps out, dressed in an ornate blood-red robe with twisting Imperial symbols embroidered along the collar and hem. A small boy cowers behind his robes, green eyes huge with tears, and Fenris feels his heart stop as the magister's slow clapping fills the courtyard, echoing over the dead bodies and the freezing wind that now howls and circles around them. Horrifying statues of slaves and wrought-iron spears that top his high walls and form his gate rip off with the screams of tearing metal, as do chunks of stone from the palace and the wall itself. He stands beside her at the center of the tornado, sword ready as he stares at his former master.

"Give me my son," he snarls, stepping closer. His tattoos flare to life across his skin, adding to the cold blue light of the scene.

The child cries out and hides behind Danarius, who laughs that high, cold laugh of his and fixes a mocking smile on his face. "How entertaining that you think you can stand against me," he says, pallid eyes digging into Fenris before they flick to Marian. "Without _her_ you would already be dead."

"I will rip the skin off your fucking bones, old man," she hisses behind him, stepping forward. Electricity snaps around her and the wind picks up speed, the temperature dropping and the walls tearing apart faster still. At any other time, a display of power such as this would frighten him, even-perhaps especially- coming from her. But in this moment, he revels in it, grateful that he has the power at his side to stand against Danarius with more fearsome magic than the old magister possesses.

His arm jerks out to hold her back, the sharp points of his gauntlets catching in the fabric of her stained robe. He knows that his former master means to bait them, to taunt them into lowering their guard so he can strike like the viper he is. "Wait," he whispers to her and she hesitates.

Danarius chuckles. "Such spirit in that one," he says, still addressing Fenris as if they are two men discussing a fetching maid. He adds, with a lewd wink, "No wonder you wasted no time in conceiving a son. And that you're willing to stand by and let her take revenge in your stead." The child shivers with the cold and Fenris feels his heart beat faster as he stares at the boy, praying that it isn't his son but fearing that the rumors are true, that this is the cruel game they've been sucked into.

"Give us our son and we'll give you a quick, clean death," Fenris says, feeling his teeth grind with the effort not to rise to the magister's provocation.

"Very well, have him." The magister reaches behind himself and shoves the boy toward them so hard that the child falls, wailing, to the stones of the courtyard. Fenris starts to lower his sword, to lunge for the boy.

Marian's hand closes on his arm and flames explode against a magical barrier, rebounding toward the magister. A burst of energy yanks the child behind the two of them, away from the mage. The child shrieks at the heat though he's protected by her barrier and scurries away, scraped knees bleeding through his small trousers. Danarius raises a shield around himself just as Fenris swings his sword toward the magister's black heart and an array of monstrous spirits rise, as well as the bodies of the men they killed, swarming toward them.

"I'll take the minions," he hears Marian yell, and the howl of wind drowns any other sound out. He sees waves of creatures freeze, only to be pummeled and shattered by stones and pieces of iron and he slashes through those that have yet to freeze, blade moving faster and brands burning through the nearest monsters.

For a split second, Danarius' face pales even further, his fear at the superior strength clear in his expression. His barrier falters. Fenris lunges. He lowers his sword, brands igniting, and jams a hand through the magister's chest. A feral grin covers his face as he closes his hand around the man's heart and yanks outward. For a moment he holds the dripping prize up in front of the blood mage's face, still grinning. Then he lets body and organ flop to the ground in sprays of blood and gore. Not even relishing the moment, he turns to join the fray, sword scything through the monsters that go flying away from Marian. He twists his blade in the chest of the last walking corpse and pulls it out with a satisfied growl.

But the wind doesn't die. Marian walks up and kisses him, her face covered in blood still. Even her lips taste of blood and sweat, her body trembling as his arms close around her. She feels small and frail in his grip, too small to summon such horrible power, and when she pulls back he sees that the illusion has faded and the long hair he's used to and strange, flashing eyes stare at him.

"Garrett's on the second floor," she says, and his gaze goes to the tiny boy cowering in the corner.

"You mean...?" he asks, afraid to hope. His hands tighten around hers and he peers into her face for any trace of residual danger. That blizzard still whirls above them, the ice so thick and pale that the rest of the city is invisible beyond the barrier of magic-induced weather. He grips her shoulders in his hands and pulls her face toward him in a fierce, desperate gesture, demanding reassurance. "Are you sure?"

"I can hear him," she whispers. Her eyes search through his, the gray reflecting some of the palest shades of blue from her conjured storm back at him, reminding him of those frosty blue illusion eyes. Bare fingers press against his temple and he feels the almost-forgotten whirl of warmth and life of her mind meshing with his.

Before Garrett was stolen, melding their minds together was a casual thing, something they did wandering the house, or reading together, playing with the baby. (It was especially pleasant in bed.) But after the baby was kidnapped, he's been too afraid to let her in and she hasn't even tried. Now he can feel that icy void where their son should be as her thoughts and emotions and memories brush over his like her hands and lips over his skin and hair- a rough, often painful jolt in some places while tenderness and heat fill others.

Then, flaring like a beacon, there is that terror and confusion that he knows for their son: the familiar swirls of light and color that make up his mind, the wandering infant's attention, the softness of his forming personality and experience.

Fenris realizes then that they are running into the castle, weaving down once-familiar hallways toward the light he feels of his child's mind. Slaves scatter before them, racing for the exit, and at one point a white flash of light shoots ahead of them in a wall down a corridor. A series of traps go off and he yanks Marian back from a jet of flame and a cloud of poison. A blast of icy wind freezes the flames and dissipates the gas. When the last small fires go out they advance to the heavy doors and those burst open with such force that the hinges howl in protest.

The room is large, decorated by the horrific statues of the old gods, carvings and paintings of slaves and tortures and demons, things so foul he hoped his sweet son would never lay eyes on them. The furniture is large, opulent, all shrouded in velvet and fur, in shades of deep red and black with gold brocade, a show of wealth and death and forbidden power. A red-haired elf woman sits at the center dressed in an apprentice's robes, her slight frame dwarfed by heavy garments he recognizes as once belonging to Hadriana. In her arms his son struggles, wailing as tears run down his soft cheeks.

"Get away from my baby," Marian snarls, her voice low and menacing as she advances through the door. She tosses her head and the tips of her long hair catch on fire, the flames flashing and swaying around her like an unholy halo of elemental fury. Frost hisses forth with her breath as she adds, "Now."

But the elf stares at him instead, bony fingers clinging tight to the baby in her lap. "Leto?" she asks, her delicate voice crashing over Garrett's howls. "Brother?"

In a flash he remembers her, a sister from long ago, proudly flaunting her magical talents as he fought to earn her freedom. Fenris stares at her, this foreign object, this former sister who now stands at Danarius' side holding his son captive. His lip curls as he sees the lines on her arms, unhidden by the baggy sleeves of her robe, that indicate she's practiced blood magic. Hate sears through his brands and lights them.

"Varania," he murmurs, glaring at her. His voice rises to a snarl. "You sold me out to become a Magister?"

"I said _now_, bitch." Marian's fist clenches around his hand and he has a strange draining sensation before realizing the light in his tattoos has faded.

With a wet tearing noise, his sister's spine rips backward and her body collapses in a limp heap. Her disembodied vertebrae hang in midair a second longer, bits of nerves and veins and tissue clinging before it, too, drops with a smacking sound. Garrett screams and holds his arms out toward them as a wave of magic holds him aloft before he can hit the floor with the dead woman.

They sprint forward at the same instant, clutching him between them with tears and incoherent words of love, their hands tangling together as they compress the whimpering baby in their arms. Outside the storm howls as their son gasps and clings to them, babbling as well, his mind flickering with lingering fear and relief and that brilliant unconditional love only a child or parent can feel. Fenris doesn't even notice the white light that encompasses them, the bright flash that dizzies him for a moment.

Creaking oiled wood rocks under his feet and the scent of sea and salt and air fills his nostrils. He hears a familiar, loud female voice shout, "Maker's Balls, where did you lot come from?"

Then he sees Marian's eyes roll back and he clings to his son even as he lunges forward to keep her from cracking her head as she collapses.

* * *

><p>Marian walks toward the bow of the boat, where she can see Isabela leaning both hands against the railing, staring at the open sea. She hesitates before she can get too close, glancing over her shoulder at Fenris and the baby, settled in a corner of the quarterdeck where they can play without being underfoot.<p>

She shoots him her best puppy eyes. He gives her a scowl and shakes his head before motioning her forward.

With a sigh, she flips him the bird and turns away from his answering smirk. He refused (despite a _lot_ of effort on her part, including convincing the First Mate to babysit and the cook to whip up a 'romantic' meal of potatoes and salted beef in hot gravy) to help her have this conversation with the pirate. When she finally challenged him to a game of rock-paper-scissors over it, he won every time.

"Goddamn bastard elf," she mutters, approaching the railing as she thinks, _if you weren't so damn hot. _

Isabela turns to smirk at her, crossing her tanned arms under her breasts. "Having troubles with the man, are you?" she asks. She leans a hip against the railing, her legs ever-steady on the rocking boat, and purrs, "I heard the two of you last night while Bran* was looking after your whelp."

Marian stiffens, worried that the pirate heard their argument about talking to her.

"So obviously it isn't anything wrong in the bedroom," grins the pirate. She winks and says, "Give anything for whatever problems you've got."

White teeth flash and Isabela rolls her eyes, turning away to stare out at the sea and resuming her former pose. It's become sort of her default pose in the last month since they've set course from Llomeryn to Kirkwall. And they lingered for a week there, while she dithered around 'visiting friends' who just happened to be various drinking and fuck buddies of either gender. Okay, so maybe Marian is a little jealous that the others could go out and enjoy the Thedas version of Vegas while she and Fenris had to stay with Garrett (who hated the constant noise and wept half the time) on the ship.

"My son was kidnapped. I'd like to go problem-free for a little while," she mutters, folding her arms and holding back a scowl. Isabela's been in a terrible mood, brooding and barking and bitching all over the place and she had to take the talk from the crew. So she's at least got another month of babysitting shifts set up. And no one wants to share the space of a ship with the captain in this kind of a mood.

"Sorry. I... look, Marian, I don't mean any offense to you or Fenris, but I don't want to be that tied to another person. I'm meant to be free," the pirate says. She doesn't look away from the sea.

"What's this about?" she asks, confused at the strange comment. Something hovers at the edge of her brain and she holds back from the obvious conclusion.

Isabela shoots her a guilty stare and whispers, "I kissed your brother. After he fought the Arishok, while I was apologizing to him, I kissed him." Amber eyes flick away a second later and Marian could swear she sees a red stain over the pirate's cheeks.

She takes a second to breathe. "And then you left town a week later," she says, not adding the obvious _long enough to _really _say goodbye_.

"It's not what you think. Your brother and I aren't involved in some torrid affair," Isabela protests. She can't seem to help smirking, though, lowering her eyes in some combination of memory or fantasy or both. "Just a few kisses."

"Gross," Marian says before she can help herself. She reaches out to touch the pirate's arm before the other woman can be offended. "I mean, sorry. He's my brother, and so... the mental image of him having torrid, passionate, dramatic kisses is, ah, pretty gross." She grins, trying to look encouraging. "Anyway. So I guess it's good he and Merrill have been sort of drifting lately?"

"No," Isabela groans and paces away with the heel of her hand pressed to her forehead, then paces back. "I didn't want to come between them. Maker, I just... I like him and all, but I don't want to be... you know." An amber eye peers sidelong through her hair. "Like you and Fenris."

Marian opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, her baby-daddy's deep voice booms, "I heard that, wench." When she glances back she has to hold in a smile. He really doesn't look as intimidating with a baby on his hip.

"So you just want to have a torrid affair and then run off to the sea?" she asks in an effort to control her laughter as her son tries to imitate his father's scowl.

"No," grumbles Isabela, pulling off her bandana to run a hand through her hair. "It's not that all I want is a good screw, though I wouldn't say no. I just don't want to get all soft and _motherly_. I mean, look at that!" She gestures at Fenris and Garrett with their matching green eyes and scowls; one a handsome, hardened warrior and the other a pudgy, happy baby. Marian can't hold in her laughter anymore.

Fenris turns his scowl on her. "You're mocking me, too?" he asks, but she can see amusement dancing in his green eyes. It's been so long since they've laughed at each other, or even laughed at all, that she keeps laughing, giddy with the relief of it. He continues, stalking toward her until she's stuck against the railing with him in front of him as he continues, "You are the mother of my child, the woman I've pledged my life to, and you mock me for being _cute_?" Right on cue, the baby whoops and laughs, bouncing against his father.

She tips her face back as he leans forward, their lips brushing. His teeth catch against her lip and he nips her, watching her with deliberate eyes through lowering lids. Laughing, she wraps an arm around the back of his head and the other behind their son's back as she kisses him. It would be one of those epic kisses like the movie _Titantic_, except for the squealing baby and the fact that Isabela ruins it with gagging noises.

"I'm going to be sick at all of this loving-family crap," the pirate mutters.

Disentangling at least their mouths, Marian and Fenris shoot their array of toothy grins and smug smirks at Isabela. "Admit it," she says, pressing her cheek to his shoulder as he tucks his chin on top of her hair, "We're the cutest damn thing you've ever seen."

Their son bounces and says, "Be-_wa_. Be-wa!" He holds his arms out toward the captain, who sighs and reaches for him. The Rivaini shoots them a long-suffering look as she swings the baby onto her hip and bounces him in her long, dark arms. Even she can't resist planting a kiss on the top of his soft head as he giggles and waves his hands in a show of infant excitement, lunging for the shine of her jewelry.

"Just don't go having another one of these for a while, alright?" Isabela says. Sharp amber eyes meet their hesitant silence and she sighs again. "Really, you two? Shit."

* * *

><p>*Because this is AU and post-Arishok, I thought it would be funny to turn Seneschal Bran into Isabela's new first mate. I might even have to write a little oneshot about the Adventures of Pirate Seneschal Bran, because it's really funny in my head.<p> 


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